


Green Heart

by SongOfErin



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, green matter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 94,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongOfErin/pseuds/SongOfErin
Summary: A Green Matter core falls into the hands of three young, resentful geniuses. The robot they create is programmed to obey every command and it certainly isn't alive... or is she? Rescued by the Walters from the heart of a terrorist plot, she must learn to fend for herself, to overcome the hatred of others and maybe even find the meaning of love. Both she and her new family must survive in a world becoming increasingly hostile towards robots.





	1. From Africa With Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sort of strange thing your brain comes up with when you spend your Christmas holidays working at a supermarket. I think it's a self-defense mechanism to stop the grey matter liquidizing and gushing out of your ears. I've built up a bit of a backlog of chapters waiting for my invite to come through, so the updates should be regular for a while. After that, I can make no promises, but I will at least try not to leave the story unfinished. It all depends how much time I can spend on this instead of all the other stupid, little things. Like my degree. A couple of apologies in advance:  
> 1) I'm English and consequently know nothing about how America works. Please forgive my ignorance if I grossly misrepresent your country.  
> 2) I'm not an engineer and I'm definitely not technically minded, so stuff I've said about programming etc. could well be completely wrong.  
> 3) They aren't the world's most coherent extremists. And that would be a good place for a TRIGGER WARNING, I'm thinking.  
> Hmm... I think that's it. Time for the actual story...

The man from the British Consulate sat awkwardly in his chair, stress and worry creasing his face, as though it was a shirt that hadn’t been ironed. His fingertips drummed incessantly against his knee in a seemingly random pattern that made Peter want to scream. But then, he had to admit that Rabbit probably wasn’t helping. The automaton was sitting on the coffee table staring avidly at the poor man or, more precisely, at the umbrella he was clutching. Peter knew the robots well enough to realise that he had better distract Rabbit from the umbrella unless he wanted to pay for a new one. Not that he couldn’t afford it, but people always made such a fuss when the boys got overly interested in their possessions and he didn’t want to start a diplomatic incident.

 ‘Rabbit,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go ask The Spine how the party plans are coming along? I’m sure he could use your help.’ This was in fact a complete lie; Peter knew very well that Rabbit would only get in the Spine’s way, but at least it would get him out from under  _his_  feet. Rabbit stretched his black lips in an evil grin and danced out of the doorway, now humming loudly. As he turned the corner in the passageway, Peter heard him shout

 ‘Hey! Spine! Where are you? Coming, ready or not!’

Peter turned back to the man from the British Consulate.

 ‘I’m sorry about that, Mr Rowbotham,’ he said, struggling a little with the visitor’s name. ‘Rabbit gets very excited when we have guests. We don’t have them very often?’

Mr Rowbotham pulled his distracted gaze away from the door, through which Rabbit could still be heard calling for the Spine, and back to Peter Walter VI. He now looked slightly disturbed.

 ‘You’re… throwing a party?’

 ‘Yes,’ Peter nodded. ‘It’s my mother’s birthday next week, so I let the boys plan the party we’re throwing.’

Mr Rowbotham’s eyes widened.

 ‘ _They’re_  throwing the party?’

 ‘Well…’ Peter conceded. ‘I’m letting The Spine plan it. He’s the most efficient. And the least likely to explode out of excitement. But what was it you needed to see me about?’

 ‘I’m afraid we need your help with a matter of the utmost urgency, Mr Walter.’

 ‘What is it? And why did you come to me?’

 ‘Your expertise, Mr Walter, and…’ The room shook as something crashed right overhead and the sound of Rabbit’s maniacal laughter drifted down from the ceiling with the plaster dust.

 ‘Would you like coffee, Mr Rowbotham?’ Peter asked, perfectly used to strange and ominous noises around the mansion.

 ‘I suppose you don’t have tea?’

Peter shook his head.

 ‘No, I thought not. In any case, I’m not here for tea. I need your help. You and your robots.’

 ‘I assume you don’t want us to put on a concert for the Queen’s birthday? I’m sorry, but that’s the only way we can help. I don’t get involved in politics.’

Mr Rowbotham stopped drumming his fingers and looked directly into Peter’s eyes.

 ‘I’m not asking for your help, Mr Walter. I’m not demanding it. I am begging you for it. If you don’t help us, hundreds, maybe thousands of people could die.’

 

_10 years earlier…_

Like an upturned bowl of polished blue enamel, the sky gleamed overhead and the African sun poured heat down upon their scarlet faces. Going on safari had seemed like such a good idea. No one else was doing that for their gap year, after all. They had gone to Ibiza, to soak up the sun, or to Amsterdam, to snort up the drugs, and not one of them had thought of going to Africa. So it had seemed like the perfect place for the three boys, so desperate to prove that they didn’t care what anyone thought of them that they had gone to the one place where they didn’t have to hear the snide comments or see the mocking looks. Marcus Barnes, Philip Rhodes and Gary Thompson were the dregs of society, never mind the five A-Levels they had apiece, or the fact that two of them were destined for Oxford and the other for Cambridge. Philip and Gary might, one day, be able to find girlfriends, provided they could first find a brand of acne cream that actually worked, but all three of them were generally awkward and unpleasant company. They could barely even stand each other, and yet they had welded themselves together in a single unit in an attempt to prove, to all the people whose opinions they didn’t care about, but mostly to themselves, that they did have friends. And now here the three of them were, in scorched and scorching Africa, being driven along a dusty road in an equally dusty Land Rover while the local guide attempted to find them some animals to look at. They had been here three days so far and the only thing they had seen that was remotely exciting was a flock of vultures tearing apart a carcass.

 ‘I’m sorry, boys,’ their guide said in perfect English. ‘Normally, with all these acacia trees, we get a lot of giraffes in this part of the world. I don’t know where they’ve all gone.’

 ‘Lost them, have you?’ Marcus asked acidly. ‘A herd of fourteen-foot rocking horses?’

The guide ignored this comment, reminding himself that these boys, however rude they were, were currently paying his wages. Besides, the absence of animals was worrying him. Perhaps it was this that made him say

 ‘There’s other things to look at here than giraffes, of course.’ 

It was a mine, the guide told them, long abandoned now. Of course, it might be unsafe, so they couldn’t go in. They sat in the car twenty feet away from it, looking at the broken skeleton of scaffolding and crumbling buildings. The sun was beginning to roll down towards the horizon and the slanting rays glinted off something metallic. Philip saw it first.

 ‘What’s that?’ he asked, breaking the nasty silence. He pointed.

 ‘Probably just an old pickaxe,’ the guide said, shrugging. ‘We should probably head back now.’

 ‘Let’s have a look. We could take it home as a souvenir.’

 ‘Yes,’ Marcus muttered, folding his arms and sitting back. ‘And everyone will be  _so_  jealous of our rusted pickaxe.’

The guide revved the engine and reluctantly circled the mineshaft, not wanting to get too close. You heard funny stories about this place. He regretted bringing them here. He regretted it even more a second later when Gary cried

 ‘It’s not a pickaxe… What is it?’

A few feet away, half-hidden in the scrubby grass, was a cat’s cradle of distorted copper, wrapped around something that glowed an eerie, unsettling green. Oddly, it was Marcus who finally got out of the car and went to pick it up, nearly breaking his ankle when he put his foot down an aardvark’s burrow. When he closed his fingers around it, the green light seemed to pulse erratically. Or was it just his imagination?

 

The car drove off, the dust cloud billowing out behind it and an aardvark, just waking up with the setting sun, rooted out an object it had found in its newly dug burrow. In many ways it was similar to the one Marcus had picked up. Except the heart concealed by twisted piping glowed bright blue. 

 

They cut the trip short and flew back home, all the while thinking only of the glowing green object they had found in the savannah. When at last they could, they met in Philip’s bedroom, took it out of its hiding place and set it on the floor.

 ‘I think,’ Philip said tentatively. ‘I think it emits some sort of energy. Maybe we could…’ But that was as far as the discussion got. Somehow, they all knew what they were going to build. And they never talked about making it female, but that was how it ended up. There was an inevitability about what they did and they never spoke of that either. An engineer, a physicist and an IT whiz, all three of them geniuses, spent months learning how to harness the power pack, as they took to calling it. They went slowly, making tests and taking all the safety precautions they could, because even if they had no common sense, they certainly weren’t stupid. All the money they’d saved for their gap year went instead on the machine that began to take shape in Phil’s room and then in his attic when he complained that being near it all the time made him feel ill. And not one of them mentioned, or even seemed to notice, the odd gaps in their memories, when the machine advanced rapidly but they had no recollection of how it had been achieved. 

At long last, when it was nearly time for them to start uni, they finished it. They chose a night when Phil’s dad was out and they brought their creation down into the living room and they switched it on. RoboVixen 1000 did absolutely nothing for a whole five minutes. Marcus whipped the safety goggles off his face and began hectoring his friends, blaming them for their incompetence and Philip and Gary tried to pass it off on each other. But then the robot moved. Her head jerked upwards and her eyes glowed with the same eerie light as her battery. All three of them fell silent. There was a slight squeak as RoboVixen turned her head and a small jet of steam. The light in her eyes died and her head began to drop again. Gary let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

 ‘At least she turns on,’ he said brightly. ‘Just that is an achievement. Do you think her… special programmes work as well?’ He twitched his eyebrows at the others.

 ‘She was supposed to  _stay_  turned on,’ Marcus growled. ‘She was supposed to  _work_. Why we did we bother building Vixen if she doesn’t?’

 ‘I think Gary’s right,’ Philip said. ‘We’ve never built a – ’ But at that moment, RoboVixen 1000 powered up again and this time, she blazed with eyeball-searing light. She straightened in her chair and then stood up, swaying on her crude, brass legs, steam hissing from every joint. The light snapped off as suddenly as it had come and through the after images now burned into their eyes, they saw the robot begin to tremble. There was a whining noise growing higher and louder, the steam pressure increased rapidly and all in all, there was a very definite sort of feel as to what was going to happen to the robot if someone didn’t do something very quickly. Once again, it was Marcus who took the plunge. He slid off the sofa, crouched and scuttled as fast as he could around RoboVixen, trying to avoid the boiling hot steam. Just as she seemed on the point of explosion, his hand hit the power button at the top of her spine. She jolted, let a huge cloud of steam come blasting out her mouth and then crumpled to the floor.

 ‘I vote,’ said Gary in a very small voice. ‘That we don’t ever switch her on again.’

 

_7 years later…_

_(That is, 3 years before the man from the British Consulate came to Walter Manor.)_

‘If we’re going to make the world a better place, then  _we_  have to do better than this!’ Lance growled, thumping his fist into his hand. ‘We need to go right to the heart of the problem. Technology has enslaved us to the United States and we need to destroy those who made that happen! We need to rip their batteries out!’ The audience roared its approval, stamping and clapping for all they were worth. Marcus was joining in. He didn’t believe a word if it of course, but these meetings made him feel that he belonged. He liked the idea of changing society, changing it to meet  _his_  ideals, not someone else’s. And then something sparked in his mind. Perhaps it was the word ‘battery’ that had done it. The audience began to file out, leaving only the hardcore group behind.

 ‘Nice speech,’ he told Lance, who shrugged.

 ‘It’d be a lot better if we could back it up with actions.’

Marcus considered for a moment, then told him about his idea. Lance’s jaw dropped.

 ‘Are you kidding?’

Marcus shook his head.

 ‘No. It’s true, I promise. If we can find a way to stabilise the power for long enough, we should be able to use her.’

Lance’s gobsmacked expression changed to one of wild, dangerous delight.

 ‘How do we get our hands on it?’

 

 The police were baffled. All the valuable items in the house – TV, computer, money -  all had been left untouched. The thieves had gone straight for the attic of all places and the victim was completely bemused as to what was in there that they could have wanted. Never had a simple burglary been so confusing.

 ‘Try again, Mr Rhodes,’ the constable said patiently in his broad, Lancashire accent. ‘Was there anythin' valuable, anythin' rare that was kept in t' attic? Anythin' at all?’

‘Only all my dad’s stuff after he died. Nothing else that I can remember.’ Something about the way he said it caught the policeman’s attention.

 ‘Sure about that?’ he asked. ‘Absolutely sure?’ The two men were locked eye to eye for a moment and then Philip Rhodes gave in.

 ‘We made a robot,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s gone.’ 

 

Power fluctuations, that was the problem. If he set up a few background calculations, getting her to find prime numbers, that sort of thing, they would help to channel any power surges. She would just count faster. At least, that was the theory. But it seemed to work. Now RoboVixen 1000 could power up and stay powered up without exploding. She could move, if rather jerkily, and the programmes they started her off with, with her limited capabilities, ran without all that many problems. He tried to delete her original programming, but some of it seemed to have stuck. Not that it mattered. She could flirt as much as she liked, as long as she set off the bomb.


	2. The War of the Rooves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Waiting a whole week to update has been killing me. I must have checked my dashboard 400 times to see how this was doing. It'll tell you something about my only other published fan fiction that in one week, the number of hits for Green Heart has more than doubled the hits my first one got in two months. So even though 26 hits is crap, I'm smiling.
> 
> Don't think I need to apologise for anything this time, although needless to say, I have never been on the roof of Westminster Palace. There's a little violence, but not much so it's probably not worth mentioning. But I just have, so there's your warning if you needed it.
> 
> Hope you like this one. If you enjoy it even a quarter as much I'm enjoying writing this work, I'll be satisfied. Oh, nearly forgot (again) to thank MermaidWithFangs for reading everything I'd written and then demanding to know where the next chapter was. She's not on AO3, but I want to mention her anyway.

 ‘A terrorist threat?’

‘Yes,’ Mr Rowbotham said, face still creased in worry. ‘They call themselves the ‘Restoration Group’. We thought they were pretty harmless, all bark and no bite. The government gets threatening letters by the bucketful, but we don’t take most of them seriously.’

 ‘What’s different about this one?’

 ‘They have something. A group of kids stumbled across it in Africa about ten years ago. One of them joined this blasted group and now they’re using it.’

 ‘I’m sorry. But we’re not going to endanger anyone’s lives, even a terrorist’s.’

 ‘Please, Mr Walter, let me finish. We have the body of one of these guys, a Marcus Barnes. His neck was broken, as though he’d been hit with something very heavy. And we have a statement from one of the other kids. He said they found something that glowed green and they found it outside the Dandy Candy mines.’

That brought Peter up short. Several governments around the world knew that the robots were special and that it had something to do with the Dandy Candy mines. He and his ancestors had always done their best to keep them in the dark as much as possible when it came to further information.

 ‘What?’ he gasped. ‘That… It can’t… No… What… What did they do with it?’

 ‘Apparently it’s some sort of energy source. They used it to build a robot. Do you understand now, Mr Walter? If these terrorists have this source of power, do you know how much damage they could do? How many lives they could take?’

‘We’ll help,’ said a deep voice from the doorway. They both looked up and saw all three robots clustered there, listening. ‘We’ll help,’ The Spine repeated.

 ‘But… your vows,’ Peter objected.

 ‘Nah, we don’t wanna hurt anyone,’ Rabbit said, waving a hand. ‘We wanna save the robot.’ If they wanted to, then who was he to stop them? The decision made for him, Peter Walter VI turned back to his visitor.

 ‘We’ll help,’ he said. ‘But only if you let us have the robot afterwards. No tests, no spiriting it away to secret labs and no stealing it back again later, are we clear?’ Mr Rowbotham looked as though he would like to protest, but he didn’t really have any other option but to agree.

 

Despite the police’s best efforts, crowds had gathered to watch the robots intercept the terrorists. A small fighter plane had zipped perilously close to the Clock Tower and the gathered Londoners and assorted tourists saw something human shaped drop from it onto the roof of Westminster Palace with an audible thud. There was a collective gasp and then another as three more figures slid down from the clock face and began sprinting jerkily across the slanted roof. 

The Spine got his first look at the robot with the green matter power core. She had turned to face them as soon as they had dropped from their vantage point. It was a she, there was no doubt about that. Her constructor had been no artist, but he had got that point across loud and clear. Her brass frame was heavily corroded and she wore the tattered remains of a black denim miniskirt and an off-the-shoulder top that had been the feeding ground for several generations of moths. Even without the holes, they could see the sickly green glow of her power core. Her black hair was loose and the wind that buffeted them this far above the ground was eagerly knotting and tangling it. An arm jerked out as she tried to balance on the point of the roof with clumsy, ill-made feet. She cut an eerie figure, but the scariest part was her eyes. They glowed with the same unnerving shade of green as her core, but they were somehow flat and expressionless. There was no consciousness behind them.

 ‘Stop,’ she said with a hiss of escaping steam. Her voice was hoarse, as if her voice box hadn’t been properly lubricated.

 ‘Y-y-you can’t do this,’ Rabbit told her. ‘You can’t blow people up.’ For they could see the wires that snaked over her shoulders from her backpack and plugged into her core. An explosion fuelled by green matter? The one with blue matter had been bad enough. She said nothing, simply stared at them. The glow of the power core kept stuttering, now dying away, now shining fiercely, her eyes changing with it.

 ‘We can help you,’ The Jon said hopefully, but eyeing her core warily. They had had too much experience with green matter to be comfortable around it. It brought back memories of the savannah and the terrible copper war machines Thadeus Becile had built. They all hoped they wouldn’t have to fight her. The Spine climbed up the slant of the roof towards her, his hands outstretched in placation.

 ‘I’m The Spine,’ he said. ‘And this is Rabbit and The Jon. We’re robots, too. We’re not enemies.’ But the automaton obviously disagreed. The second he got close enough, her hand lashed out and caught him on the side of the neck. If he hadn’t been made of titanium, she would probably have killed him. As it was, he fell, rolled down the roof and hit the crenel with a thunderous crash that seemed to shake the entire building. The collective gasp from the crowd below could be heard even here, two hundred feet up. Rabbit screamed and The Jon threw his arms around the robot’s waist to stop him launching himself after The Spine.

The robot girl looked down at the crumpled remains of her left hand, her eyes gleaming brighter. Then she turned and wobbled off across the rooftop towards an access door. If she reached it, their plan had no hope of succeeding. The Spine pulled himself up on the parapet. The titanium had been too hard for her to dent, but electricity sparked painfully through his circuits, warning him of damaged circuitry and loose wiring. He gritted his teeth, pushed the feeling aside and focused on the task at hand. Repairs could wait until later.

 ‘S-Spine? Y-you okay?’ The Jon asked, peering at him anxiously.

 ‘Fine. Now come on.’

They followed the brass girl across the rooftops, but didn’t manage to close the distance. Her balance was bad, but their own wasn’t much better. Not only was the roof very steep, but, because this was England, it had been raining and the tiles were as slick as if it was oil, not water that covered them. Then the wavering figure in front of them jolted, stumbled and fell. There was another tremendous crash as she landed in a heap. The slip gave them the chance to catch her and they skidded to a stop in front of her as she struggled to get back up, all her joints puffing out steam, one foot bent at an odd angle. The Jon stepped a little too close and her undamaged hand whipped out, but Rabbit pulled him back just in time.

 ‘She must have defence protocols programmed in,’ The Spine mused. ‘To stop anyone getting close enough to turn her off.’

 ‘How about we use you as a shield, Spine?’ Rabbit suggested. ‘Th-then we could get close enough.’

 ‘Rabbit, remember what happened the last time you suggested using me as a shield?’

The Jon grimaced and said

 ‘Messy.’

 ‘Aw, but that was ages ago, Spine! And she hasn’t got a bazooka.’ Before the argument could go any further, the robot girl finally managed to stand up. She paused, watching them. Just as she went to turn away, The Spine spotted something over her shoulder and shouted

 ‘Hey!’

Her head snapped back around, attention fixed on him. Just as it should be. Rabbit and The Jon had noticed it too. But how they could they keep her from turning around? Rabbit put his head on one side, then pulled a tile out of the roof without difficulty and threw it at her. It cracked her on the shoulder and she swayed with the force, almost falling over again.

Her eyes and her core suddenly dimmed and her head began to droop, before the glow shone out brighter and for the first time, she actually seemed to _see_ them. She bent down, picked up half of the shattered tile and threw it right back at Rabbit. He ducked, but not far enough and it took his hat off, shattering the lenses in his goggles. For a moment, all four of them were completely still, no one entirely sure what to do. They had to keep her busy, but who knew how much time was left on the bomb. Or did she control it and it wouldn’t go off until she was in position? Then from behind her there was a scraping noise and a hastily stifled curse. She swung round and saw Peter Walter VI right behind her, his hand raised to press the power button in the back of her neck. She raised her arm.

 ‘No!’ the robots cried. She froze, then looked back over her shoulder at them.

 ‘You can’t kill him!’ Rabbit yelled. Down below, the watchers gasped again.

 ‘Defend,’ she said in that hoarse, rusty-sounding voice.

 ‘That’s not defence,’ The Spine said sharply. ‘That’s murder.’ She stared at him. ‘You don’t have to do this,’ he said in a quieter voice. ‘You’re more than a machine.’ He wished Peter would hurry up and press the switch, but still the robot did nothing. She didn’t even lower her hand, but continued to stare at him with those odd, flickering eyes. They were green, like his, but somehow they were completely different, wrong, almost lifeless. _Almost_ lifeless. ‘You’re a person.’ It wasn’t quite a question, but she opened her mouth as though she was about to answer. Then her eyes went out and her brass frame began to sag. Peter let out a sigh of relief and reached forward. But then she turned back on again and this time her eyes blazed. The light seemed to fill the whole of the cloud-darkened sky, blinding them and everyone on the ground. Steam blasted out of her mouth and her neck and there was an ominous creaking sound of metal under strain. And then, just as suddenly as the light had come, it snapped off and there was a series of metallic thuds. The wind tore the steam-cloud to shreds and as it parted, The Spine saw the robot sprawled face down on the roof. Something told him she wouldn’t be getting up again. He reached down and opened the backpack. It was filled with dynamite: deadly, but it wouldn’t explode on its own.

 ‘Is she all right?’ asked Rabbit, putting his battered hat back on. ‘She’s gonna be all right, isn’t she? We came all this way to save her. She’s got to be all right. If she’s not all right, w-w-w-w-we can’t have an ice-cream party.’

 ‘Peter, you can save her, can’t you?’ The Jon asked.

 ‘I’ll try,’ Peter said. But as The Spine gazed down on the prone form of the badly-made, badly-treated automaton, he wondered if that spark of life he had seen in her had extinguished itself. Unbidden, a single black droplet curved its way down the cold, silver angles of his cheek.


	3. Frankenstein

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm sorry this is so short. It just divided up better this way. To make up for it, I'll be posting another chapter on... Wednesday? Thursday? One of the two, anyway. If it helps, it's killing me having the published bit so far behind where I've written to.   
> Thank you to the people who left kudos, you've made me really happy. I hope anyone else who's reading this is enjoying it too, but for all I know, it could just be the three of you reading it.  
> Right, now for the actual story. We're getting through the introductory stuff now and into the feels. In theory. It gave me feels, whether it gives you lot feels is a different matter. I hope it does. And once again, I know almost nothing about engineering except what I learnt in GCSE Science, so it might be wrong.  
> TRIGGER WARNING for (sort of) suicidal/homicidal thoughts. And on that happy note, enjoy!

Peter stared down at the robot spread out on the bench in front of him. Where should he even start? He didn’t know that much about green matter. Could he treat it the same way as blue? He could ask his father, but he wasn’t sure that he would have any insights either. Besides, that would mean admitting he was meddling with green matter and he suspected his parents would disapprove. Of course, if he managed to repair the robot, he would have to own up: they wouldn’t be able to miss her, even in a place as labyrinthine as this, but he had always found it easier to get his parents’ forgiveness than their permission. Should he ask Norman? But the old man had lost so much of his mind, it seemed unlikely that he’d know anything useful. Behind all this there lurked a bigger question.

  _Should I try to repair her?_ There, he had finally asked it. Of course, the robots would be upset, but he could always tell them he couldn’t save her. She was powered by green matter, after all. There was no knowing what she would be like. She could be a lunatic, if it was possible to be anything else at Walter Manor, she could be dangerous, she could be _evil._  She had tried to blow up Westminster Palace, after all.Maybe…maybe it was better just to disconnect her permanently, destroy her power core and recycle the brass into something else. His hands were hovering over the core. He grasped it. Footsteps echoed in the corridor and Rabbit barged in, The Jon and The Spine right behind her. Peter let go of the power core as though it had burned him and tried to act normally.

 ‘I asked you not to disturb me, boys.’

The Jon ignored this and walked over to the work bench, peering down at the brass girl. The Spine shrugged apologetically, but Rabbit said

 ‘Have you fixed her yet?’

 ‘Rabbit, I haven’t even started! I don’t know where to begin!’ They all looked at him. What was it he saw in their eyes? Expectation? Disappointment?

 ‘Start how you would if it was one of us,’ The Spine suggested, level-headed as always.

 

They didn’t leave, but sat in a line on the edge of the other work bench, watching him. He still wasn’t sure if mending her was the right thing to do, but under that scrutiny he had little choice. As he worked, he found that much of what was wrong was simply that she hadn’t been built very well to begin with. The kids who made her had obviously been clever: they must have been to get her to work at all, but they were troglodytes compared to Colonel Peter Walter I and his descendants.

The other main problem was the erratic output of the core, but it seemed his active, fertile mind had been waiting for just this sort of challenge. It presented him with novel ideas, possible solutions to regulate the power flow. He cobbled something hastily together and then wired her into a series of transformers and linked those to the house’s electricity supply. He hoped there wouldn’t be any explosions if the energy levels skyrocketed, but in theory it should give the excess a path to follow. Then he paused. He knew he had to turn her on before he could do any major repair work, to see if she was still… alive. The three robots leaned forward as one as he rolled her onto her side and pressed the power button. There was a faint, muted hum and her core glowed a little. Then one finger on her right hand moved, just a little, so Peter almost missed it. And then her eyes opened and this time the light they gave out was steady. Her head moved stiffly, turning to look first at him and then at the robots.

 ‘Welcome back,’ The Spine said, softly.

But the brass robot shook her head.

 ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘You should… have… destroyed me.’ With that Peter knew she was not evil or dangerous and that if she hadn’t been before, she was now as alive, as conscious, as _human_ , as the three automatons ranged along his workbench. And he also knew that, even though he had contemplated it just a few hours before, he would never be able to kill her.


	4. Let Me Count the Ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go: a second chapter this week, as promised. Thank you to you all for reading this. It's wonderful getting your comments, especially when I'm struggling with the essay I have to write. (It's done now, just have to edit it. Just! HA!) You might get two chapters next week as well, because it'll be my birthday. I'll see how generous I'm feeling and whether I remember in all the excitement. Yep, I'll be twenty (WTF!) and I still haven't grown out of getting excited over birthdays.
> 
> Okay, for the first time, we see things from the robot girl's perspective! That does mean this chapter is basically a revisit of what's happened so far, but there is new stuff in it, I promise and after this it's new shit all the way. If I'm honest, this chapter is one of my favourites, even though getting all the numbers right took a prime number list, several attempts and about three hours. I've just realised I like writing these notes waaay too much, so I'm going to shut up now so you can read the chapter, which is, after all, what you're here for.

Consciousness was painful. She didn’t come to life all at once, but seemed to come and go. Where she came from and went back to, she wasn’t sure. One moment, she was dimly aware of her body and the beings in front of her, the next there was almost nothing. As her core sputtered and fitted, her mind expanded and contracted, now big and empty, now tiny, like the mind of an amoeba. And then all of a sudden, it was like the whole world was pouring into her. She could see them more clearly now, the ones who had made her. No, she could see more. For that one moment, she could see _everything_. But she wasn’t built for that, her mind couldn’t cope with being constantly reshaped, like someone playing with an elastic band. And then there was nothing.

For seven years, there was nothing and nothing to perceive it.

 

_2… 3… 5…_

She didn’t know when the counting had started, only that it didn’t stop. It filled her, steadied her, stopped the strange, rocketing motions that her mind had been subjected to last time. The people around her were dim shapes making dull sounds, but she didn’t have the mental capacity to try to perceive them more clearly.

 

_23… 29… 31…_

They had done something and now she could see and hear a little better. She could distinguish between faces and hear some of what they said. It meant little to her, however. Sometimes they would speak and then there would be a long pause and then the one who had spoken would throw his hands up and they would all begin talking again.

_No,_ she thought haltingly. _Arguing. They…are…37, 41, 43, 53, 59, 61, 69, 71…_

_101…103…107…_

There had been nothing again. It might have been for longer than before, or for no time at all. But there had been a time of nothing and now things were different. She could understand more of what they said now. She recognised this fact and accepted it; it sparked no curiosity in her. A man stood in front of her again. He said

‘Hello, Vixen.’

‘He-llo.’ Was that her voice? She had never heard it before, had never spoken before, but she knew how to answer him.

_How?_

_109,113,127,131,137,139,149,151…_

_347… 349… 353…_

The man had… upgraded her again. She heard him telling people so. Something about… defence protocols.

‘De-fend.’ They all stopped talking and looked at her. She didn’t know how she was supposed to react to that.

‘That’s right. You can defend yourself now, so that no one can stop you doing what we want you to.’

‘Why are you talking to it, Marcus? It can barely understand you,’ one of the others drawled. She looked at him, as they had done when she had spoken.

‘See, Lance? She understands more than you think, don’t you, my dear?’ She looked at him. She didn’t know what ‘my dear’ meant.

 

_607… 613… 617…_

The counting was relentless. At first it was a support, to stop her mind from crumbling, but now… Now it imprisoned her. She wasn’t sure how, but she felt that in someway, the counting was responsible for her… stupidity. Every time she had a… a _thought_ , the counting sped up. It overwhelmed her until there was nothing else.

‘…preliminary test…’

_641… 643… 647…_

There was a map in her brain now.

‘Follow this. When you get there, set off the bomb.’ He… _Marcus…_ showed her the switch to press in the bag they had placed on her back. She followed the route in her brain, leaving the cellar behind. For the first time, she was walking, albeit awkwardly, feeling her arms and legs move. She climbed a flight of old rickety stairs that shook under her weight and then paused when she got to the top. The map opened in her mind and she turned left. The light was very dim in this room, but she ignored that and followed the route. Until she bumped into something big, at which point she overbalanced and fell forwards with a heavy thud into something that was both hard and spongy at the same time. There were sounds beneath her, footsteps heading across the cellar to the stairs, but the map was still in her mind, pulling her on. She raised herself and then stood up, still very conscious of her arms and legs.

_677,683, 691… 701…_

She put her hands out to feel her way around the obstacle, which was vaguely rectangular.

_Sofa_ said something in her mind, but the counting sped up again, so she ignored the object and continued on her route. She went up another flight of stairs and then came face to face with a ladder. Again, she stopped, unsure how to proceed. The map told her to go up it.

‘I told you the ladder would be too much, Marcus,’ the man called Lance said from the bottom of the stairwell. ‘It doesn’t know how to climb.’ It was like a staircase, she realised, but vertical. She reached out again and grasped the sides of the ladder. Then her right foot lifted and jerked onto the rung. Her knee straightened. Her hands moved. The left foot came up. At the top of the ladder she paused for a third time before attempting to get out onto the attic floor. Her foot caught on the lip of the hatch and she sprawled across the dusty floor. It creaked ominously, but held her weight. She clambered up again, then took her backpack off and opened it. She pressed the button. There was a beeping noise.

‘Excellent!’ Marcus said from further down the old house. ‘She’s done it.’ The map was now telling her to backtrack, so she made her way back down the ladder and the flight of stairs.

‘That’s all very well, Marcus,’ Lance was saying. ‘But how do we know it will work all together? Are the defence protocols on?’

‘Yes,’ Marcus said. ‘They’re on a proximity alert.’ As he said it, a siren started up somewhere, coming closer and closer. Both men froze, but she continued towards them. The siren faded away again. They hadn’t moved. They were too close. She had to defend. Her hand shot out and caught Marcus on the side of the neck. He crumpled. There were cries and yells around her. _Have I done something wro-_ _829,839,853,857, 859, 863… 877…_

She never even noticed someone press her power button.

_1249… 1259… 1277…_

They were high above the Earth now and everything she was surrounded by was new to her. But there was no curiosity in her. She merely waited. There was a new map in her head now and it told her they were getting closer and closer. Then a door opened underneath her and she fell onto a steep, slippery surface. But the fall had been a short one and nothing seemed broken. She got to her feet, struggling to keep her balance and went to follow her route, but there were three loud thuds behind her. She turned. For a moment she simply stared. Then she realised that the figures were robots. No human had skin that shone like that. They dressed in black and red, all three of them, and they all wore hats. One was brass, like her, the second was copper and the third, the tallest of them all, was silver. _Steel, perhaps?_ But then the counting sped up, and she lost the thought. The wind buffeted her and she flung out an arm to counterbalance. The robots continued towards her.

‘Stop,’ she said. That wasn’t in her programming, was it?

‘Y-y-you can’t do this. You can’t blow people up.’ What did that mean? Were they new instructions? She didn’t understand them, so she ignored them.

‘We can help you.’ Help? The counting sped up again. The silver one climbed towards her, speaking. But she couldn’t concentrate on the words. He was coming too close. She had to defend. Like before, her arm shot out and the silver man disappeared down the slope of the roof. Once again there was a cry. It must be normal, then. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Only then did she notice her hand. Two fingers were now completely flat and the whole thing was almost completely disconnected from the wrist. A few split wires fizzed in the damp air. For just a moment, she felt… worried. The counting gathered pace. Her hand was of no importance though. the only thing was to follow the route. She _had_ to follow the route. She turned back around and set off, finding it hard to keep her balance on the slick, rounded tiles. The other robots were talking behind her and then there were metallic footsteps as they followed her along the roof. But they weren’t important either, as long as they didn’t get too close. 

Her foot caught on a tile that wasn’t quite flush with the others and she lost her balance. Sky and roof spun around her as she rolled down the roof and was brought up short against the parapet. She tried to stand, but her foot was at the wrong angle and she fell again. The worry came back now. If she couldn’t get up, she couldn’t follow the route and that meant she couldn’t complete her task. _1327,1361,1367, 1373, 1381, 1399… 1409…_ But the counting didn’t fix her foot. The other robots were close by her now. One came too close and she tried to defend herself. But the copper robot pulled the brass one away before her hand could connect. That wasn’t supposed to happen, but now they were far enough away that she could ignore them. She heard the words ‘defence protocols’ from the silver one, but he didn’t tell her to turn them off. Eventually, she managed to balance on her foot and paused to make sure the robots weren’t coming any closer. But before she could go anywhere, the silver one had shouted at her. She stopped, unsure if it was a threat. _1433,1439,1447,1451, 1453, 1459… 1471…_ The counting had sped up again, but for no reason. Then she saw the copper robot bend and pull a tile out of the roof. It hit her so hard she jerked off balance.

 

…. _1481……1483….…..1487….._

For just a second, there had been nothing again. Her mind was slower than ever.

 

_…1489,1493,1499,1511,1523…_

And then there was a surge of power and she looked again at the robots in front of her.

_Where did they come from? How can I stop them?_ She looked down and found the tile and although nothing told her to, she picked it up and threw it back at the copper robot. _1531… 1543… 1549… 1553…_ She was back to normal now. Then there was a scraping sound right behind her. She spun around, as best she could with one bent foot. There was a man behind her. He was too close. She had to defend. She raised her arm.

‘No!’

She stopped. Was this an order? She looked back at the robots, uncertain whether to obey. _1567… 1571… 1579, 1583…_

‘You can’t kill him!’ the copper one shouted. She didn’t understand. She had to defend.

‘Defend,’ she said. That was what she had been told to do.

‘That’s not defence. That’s murder.’ It was the silver one. She transferred her gaze to him, waiting for him to explain. _1601, 1607, 1609, 1613,1619…_ ‘You don’t have to do this.’ Of course she did, she had to follow her programming. That was the point of it. _1621,1627,1637,1657,1663,1667…_ ‘You’re more than a machine.’ Was she? ‘You’re a person.’ _Am I?  1669,1693,169716991709172117231733174-_

_...._

For the second time in her existence, her mind expanded as the power surge filled it. It was like being a god. _What am I doing?_ She saw the robots properly now. She saw the human she had nearly killed, saw how defenceless he was against her. She remembered defending against… _no_ , she remembered _killing_ Marcus. Now she noticed the crowds below, like a swarm of ants, and now she understood the copper robot’s words. She understood what a bomb was, could calculate with perfect precision the number of people who would die if she followed her instructions and most of all she understood what that would _mean_. The wires that had been hooked into her power unit suddenly took on a terrifying new meaning. But she had to press the button to set the bomb off. If she didn’t, no one would die. _But can I go against my programming?_ All this went through in her head in a second and then the answer presented itself. If she was never turned on again, she couldn’t fulfill the programme. She could feel the power surge dying, the limits creeping back around her mind. But nothing could prevent her from doing this.

 

_-117471753175917771783178717891801,1811,1823,1831,1847, 1861, 1867, 1871, 1873… 1877… 1879… 1889…. 1901….. 1907…… 1913…….. 1931……... 1933……………1949……………… 1951……………………………………_


	5. Tears, Idle Tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodness, we've reached Chapter 5 already? No more backtracking from this point on and our girl finally has a name, a decent one. It's not really the most imaginative name I could have come up with, but it popped into my head while I was thinking about her and then it stuck and I couldn't change it. I think it suits her.  
> I have a question to ask you, my lovely readers, and two apologies to make:  
> 1\. I nearly forgot to update today. I'm very sorry. But as I didn't forget, I shall move on to  
> 2\. I don't have Tourette syndrome, or know anyone who does. So it's probably not accurate. I did all of ten minutes research on Google and then decided that hey! she's a robot, so it won't work the same way and it was only supposed to be something similar, not the actual thing, anyway! (Did that sound convincing?)  
> Okay, here's the question:  
> Has anybody spotted the theme for the chapter titles? It's quite a broad one and it might not be obvious yet, but I just wondered. Comment if you think you've spotted it.  
> Enjoy this one!  
> P.S. Forgot an apology: there's a lot of crying in this. And in a lot of the fan fic as whole, come to that. Sorry. It just seems to be working out that way.

The first thing she noticed when consciousness flooded back was the silence. There were no prime numbers reeling themselves off in the back of her head. For a long time, she didn’t stir, but just lay, listening to the silence. It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. And gradually she realised that her mind no longer felt limited, but neither was it being stretched and contracted at a rate of knots. A feeling of great contentment washed over her. She could _think._

 _Hang on. I turned myself off. To stop… to stop myself killing all those people!_ The realisation shook her awake and she sat bolt upright. Or at least, she tried to. Hands grabbed her and pushed her back down again and she struggled against them. The man bending over her was the one she had almost killed. Her breath caught as guilt filled her. _Breath?_ That shocked her enough to stop trying to get up. And other things were different too. She could see so much clearer now.

‘It’s okay,’ the man said. And she could hear better too! ‘You’re safe here,’ the man said. Safe? Surely he should be worried that he wouldn’t be safe from her!

‘I d-d-don’t think she believes you, Peter,’ came another voice. She vaguely recognised it as belonging to the copper robot from the rooftop. She tried to sit up again and this time she managed it. She was on a bench in some kind of workshop, the blond man named Peter standing beside her and the three robots arranged on a second bench. All four were watching her.

‘What’s your name?’ asked the brass one. She opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again.

 _What is my name?_ She remembered Marcus calling her… something. She could only half remember the sounds. What had he said?

‘Do you have a name?’ the tall, silver robot with the rich voice asked her.

‘P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-’ she stuttered. She tried to stop, but by then she was caught in the glitch. ‘P-pi-pi-pi-’ Her head was vibrating with every misfired syllable. ‘Pis-pis-pis-pis-pis-pis-’ The robots all looked at each other and then at Peter, who seemed slightly disturbed.

‘Piston!’ she finally got out, panting with the effort. They all looked relieved.

‘Hello, Piston,’ Peter said, smiling. ‘I’m Peter Walter VI and this is-’

‘I’m Rabbit!’ interrupted the copper one, grinning broadly.

‘I’m The Jon!’ the brass one said, just as eagerly.

‘And I’m The Spine.’ He touched his hat. ‘We’re glad to see you awake, Piston. We thought, well…’

‘We weren’t sure you’d recover,’ Peter finished quietly. But Piston recalled again why she had turned herself off in the first place.

‘B-b-b-b-b-b-b-’ She was stuck again. What was wrong with her voice? It hadn’t done this before. ‘Bo-bo-bo-bo-’ She gave up and gestured at her back where the rucksack full of dynamite had been.

‘Bomb?’ Peter asked. Piston nodded. ‘We got rid of it. And we wiped your programming. From now on, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’ Only now did she notice the lack of instructions, the reason for the blissful silence in her head. She blinked, startled, and not a bit disconcerted. There wasn’t anything she wanted to do. All she’d ever done before was what she was told. She wanted to say this, but didn’t want to get stuck in a glitch again.

‘See? _She_ doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to!’ Rabbit suddenly said, glaring at The Spine, who sighed. Then Rabbit, leaning so far forward he was in danger of falling off the bench, asked her ‘Are you okay?’ Piston gestured at her mouth and throat.

‘The glitches?’ Peter interpreted. ‘I’ll see what I can do about them. It’s probably just grit in your works. For the moment, I’ve still got a lot of repair work to do on you. The people who made you didn’t have much idea about maintenance.’ She put her head on one side, unsure what he meant to do.

‘Most of your chassis and plating is corroded and what isn’t is dented or wasn’t very well-made to start with. What I’m going to do-’ He stopped, then started again. ‘What I’d _like_ to do, with your permission, is to do a major overhaul. I can repair what needs repairing and give you all kinds of systems upgrades. I’ve done your photo- and audio receptors already, I've replaced those awful fans you had and I think I’ve worked out a way to channel your green matter core safely. I’ve rigged up a temporary connection, but with a bit more work I should be able to install a permanent one. Oh and I’ve removed your power button as well.’ There was a squeak as Piston lifted an arm to feel the back of her neck. Sure enough, there was no longer a circular button there.

‘The boys insisted,’ Peter told her. ‘They said only you should have the right to your power. What’s wrong?’

Some odd, completely alien feeling had been welling up inside her all the time Peter had been speaking and now it came out streaming out of her, along with a large volume of oil that was suddenly pouring out of her eyes. Seeing the black drops swim across her vision and then drop onto the bench panicked Piston. She had never done this before and her whole body began to shake. She made a sort of noisy, gargley hiccup and then a strange noise came out of her mouth. It was a sort of hoarse bark and it was completely involuntary. She tried to stop it and when she found she couldn’t, she panicked even more and the sound got louder and more violent.

Rabbit and The John were clamouring, trying to ask her what was wrong, mop up her tears and ask Peter what was wrong with her all at the same time. Peter was patting her on the arm while simultaneously trying to read the displays of several instruments that had started to make loud beeping sounds and The Spine seemed to have disappeared. And all the time, this horrible, harsh bark was coming out of her mouth and _she couldn’t stop it!_ Her sobs became wilder, the oil was cascading down her cheeks like melt-water and heat was building up in her chest.

 _It’s okay._ She hiccupped in surprise at the voice in her head.

_It’s me. It’s The Spine. I finished linking you up to our Wi-Fi, so we can talk to you like this._

_S-Spine? How do I stop?_ Another bark issued from her oil-slick lips. This one sounded horribly like a laugh, a cold, mocking laugh.

 _It’s okay,_ The Spine sent again. _If you can’t tell us out loud what was wrong, tell me like this._

But she wasn’t sure how to explain it and her brain was still frozen with fear.

_Is it the repairs? Did you not want them done?_

_…No… It’s… Why… Why are you being so kind?_ she finally managed. _I nearly killed you._

 _That wasn’t your fault!_ His vehemence surprised her. _Those people programmed you to act like that. You couldn’t do anything about it!_

 _But I did. I turned myself off. Why didn’t I do that earlier?_ For a moment, The Spine said nothing, the barking continued and a new beeping sound started up. Peter muttered a very rude word.

 _What can you remember about the rooftop?_ Why did he want to know? Piston tried to think back, but all her memories were blurry, as though she had watched the whole thing through narrowed eyes.

_I remember landing on the roof and then you three. I-I hit you. You were too close. I’m sorry!_

_It’s okay. You hurt yourself more than you hurt me._

_Then I fell and I couldn’t get back up again. Then I finally did and... Rabbit? threw a tile at me and I threw it back. Peter was behind me. He was too close and I nearly…_

_But you didn’t._

_But it was what you said. That I was a person._

_You are._

_I think my core had a flare up. I only remember it happening once before. It’s like…_ but she wasn’t sure how to describe it.

_I think my core is what makes me… alive. Does that make sense?_

And then The Spine told her about their own blue matter cores and that it did indeed make a lot of sense. And all the while he was speaking, she grew calmer and eventually both the barks and the tears ceased.

_Thank you._

_You’re welcome._

 

A week later and Piston looked, and felt, like a new robot. Peter had replaced damaged parts, old, corroded parts and parts that had just never worked all that well to begin with. He had given her new face plates, new legs and feet so she could walk much more easily, streamlined her arms and hands and he had hooked up her core in such a way that she was no longer subject to its whims. Best of all, she could actually speak properly now, without her voice box glitching. All the time he worked on her, Rabbit or The Spine would sit in the room with her, telling her funny stories about the three of them or, in The Spine’s case, filling her in on what life at Walter Manor was like. No one, he had said quite seriously, should have to face that unprepared. She had laughed, aware that there was indeed a lot of craziness. But one day she found herself asking a question she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to.

 _Spine?_ She sent it over the Wi-Fi, because Peter was having a hell of a time trying to get her legs working properly and she didn’t want to disturb him. The air was blue enough as it was.

_Yes?_

_Why doesn’t The Jon come to see me?_ After that first day, he had kept away and she had a horrible feeling that it was something she had done.

_Spine?_

_…Sorry. I was thinking. He just… has days like this. We’re his brothers. We were all made at the same time, by the same guy and you’re new and made by someone else and… that’s all it is. He wants you to be here, but he knows life’ll be different now and he just has to get used to it. It’s nothing you’ve done, Piston._

She sighed. Something in The Spine’s tone suggested there was something else going on, but she didn’t push it. She owed them so much, not least her life, that the last thing she wanted to do was rock the boat. Still, she had noticed, when they thought she wasn’t looking, The Spine and Rabbit giving her odd looks. They were cautious, almost nervous looks, as though they were waiting for something to happen. But they were perfectly friendly and polite, so she resolved to let the matter sort itself out.

 

To her great surprise, it was The Jon who came to sit with her the very next day. Peter had finished wrestling with her left leg, but now the right was giving him problems. She had suggested that he leave it for the time being and attack a different problem, but all he had said was

‘Nope.’

So she left him to it.

‘Hey, Jon,’

‘Hi, Piston… How’s it going?’

Assuming he meant the repairs, she said

‘I think we’re nearly there. I feel so much better.’

He nodded. There was an awkward pause.

‘Have you ever been on a horse adventure, Piston?’ The Jon suddenly asked.

‘Noo… can’t say I have… What’s a horse adventure?’

‘YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A HORSE ADVENTURE IS?’ The Jon shrieked, bouncing up and down as though he’d been electrocuted.

‘Please don’t do that, Jon,’ Peter said wearily. ‘Don’t make her move when I’ve got a soldering iron inside her leg.’

‘Oh… sorry, Peter.’

‘What is a horse adventure?’ Piston asked, with a certain amount of trepidation. The Jon explained, talking excitedly about the different sorts of horse he and his brothers rode. She had to get him to explain what a quesadilla was and even when he had, she couldn't quite picture it.

‘We’ve got a lot to teach you, huh?’

‘I suppose so.’

The Jon decided her education should continue then and there and he chatted for a bit about ice cream and sandwiches until she began to wonder how their lives could revolve so much around food when they presumably didn’t eat. Then he told about songs that he liked and how he wished they had a cat. Or a dog. Or a gerbil. Or a really, really big bumblebee that you could ride on and that would be really, really fluffy.

‘That sounds amazing,’ Piston whispered, her eyes glowing brighter with wonder.

The Jon shrugged and for some reason, didn’t seem to want to say anymore. It was a pity. She had really enjoyed hearing him talk. The life they led sounded so exciting. And, like Peter had said, they didn’t do anything they didn’t want too. Or not that many things anyway. Most problems in the Manor seemed to arise from attempting to stop the ‘bots doing something they wanted to do very much.

‘Got it!’ Peter cried, wiping sweat from his brow. ‘Try that, Piston.’ Cautiously, but excitedly, she swung her legs off of the bench and slide gently down to put her weight on them. Then she let go of the bench. For a moment, she wobbled, but then she found her balance and took a step forward and then another. It was such a lovely sensation that she laughed. These legs worked much better than her old ones had, even if her gait wasn’t precisely the same as a human’s.

There was a mirror in the workbench so that the robots could see themselves with their new upgrades. The figure she saw in the looking glass was a very different one to the one that had arrived at Walter Manor a brief week ago. The battered, corroded plates were gone, her hair was brushed and glossy and even her face was a little different. The only things the same were her clothes and Peter had promised she could get new ones as soon as she was running properly. So different… But Piston realised she liked that. It made her feel a world away from the robot who had nearly blown up half of London. She smiled at herself in the mirror and twirled on the spot just because she could. In the glass, she could see Peter beaming and The Jon’s eyes glowing their soft blue.

‘Could you get back on the bench for me, Piston?’ Peter asked. ‘I just want to check your power connection one last time.’

She sighed, just to tease him, but got back on the bench. The green core was now covered by an access plate, which Peter had said all the other robots had too. He opened it now and began peering at all the wires and valves. She had to admit, it was quite disconcerting to have someone’s hands in your insides, but Peter had had to do so much work on the core that she had very quickly got used to it.

‘Peter?’ A middle-aged woman had put her head round the door. ‘Are you ready, dear?’

‘Ready?’ Peter said, somewhat vaguely.

‘Yes. It’s our anniversary. You said you’d take us out to dinner tonight.’ Peter stood bolt upright, grimacing with guilt.

‘Err, Mom, about that…’

‘Don’t worry, your father forgot as well. But you will take us out to dinner won’t- What’s that?’ She had noticed Piston, who found herself subjected to intense scrutiny.

‘Ah,’ Peter said. ‘Yes. I was going to mention that… at some point.’

‘Is that green matter?’ his mother asked, striding into the room, apparently horrified. ‘Are you insane? You do _know_ what happened with Becile’s elephants, don’t you?’

Piston flinched. She had known that having a green matter core instead of a blue one made her slightly different to the others, but did this mean it was a bad thing?

A man poked his head around the doorframe. Except that he was older, he was identical to his son.

‘What’s all the row about? Aren’t we going to dinner?’

‘Green matter!’ his wife declared, pointing at Piston, who flinched again. ‘The boy could have killed himself!’

Peter Walter V went white.

‘Son, whatever possessed you to fool around with green matter? Even the blue stuff’s problematic at best!’

By now, Piston was panicking again. There _was_ something wrong with her and that must be why the others kept giving her those odd looks and why The Jon hadn’t come near her for so long. The fear boiled inside her, racing along electrical circuits and oil lines and then her mouth opened and _Oh no, here it comes_. But she couldn’t stop it. All she could do was sit there as she began barking uncontrollably and everyone in the room turned to stare at her.


	6. Much Ado About Nothing or Robot Huggle Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had decided against posting a chapter today, but all the snow here as fucked up my plans for my birthday. So I thought I'd post this to cheer myself up. It's quite sweet. After this I'll go back to just updating on Sundays.  
> Hope anyone out there with snow is having a better day of it than I am. I'm just hoping the restaurant is still open tonight. Otherwise we'll have walked a sodding big hill in the snow for nothing and I won't be able to get my katsu curry.  
> Okay, I'll stop complaining now. Here's your chapter. I think it's pretty well named. What do you think?

_Jon! I can’t stop! Jon, help me, please!_

‘What’s happening?’ Annie asked. Peter swore, mildly as he was around his mother, and rushed to Piston’s side.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, patting her on the shoulder. ‘You frightened her!’ he accused his mother. At that, her expression melted from anger to one of concern.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, stepping closer. ‘I’m so sorry, my dear. I’m not angry at you, but my idiot son.’ That wasn’t what had set her off, but Piston couldn’t explain that, because she no longer had control over her own voice. And there was something else wrong too.

_Jon? Jon? Jon, please!_

The brass robot shuffled awkwardly, refusing to meet her gaze.

Peter was trying to explain to his parents that the green core hadn’t been his idea, that Piston seemed to bark only when she was stressed, that she couldn’t speak when it happened, how they had come by her in the first place and admit that their trip to England hadn’t been for quite the reasons he had originally told them, all at the same time. His father was rummaging through the tools on the bench, clearly with some idea in mind.

At last, The Jon answered Piston.

_…Piston, do you remember anything about elephants?_

_About what?_

_Or Africa?_

_I don’t know what you’re talking about! What’s an elephant?_ Peter’s mother had mentioned elephants as well. They must be something bad.

But The Jon seemed to perk up slightly.

_It’s… it’s a big animal with a trunk, that moves like this._ He put his arm to his nose and waved it about. She laughed at the same time as her body tried to bark and she made a sound not unlike a hyena in pain.

_You don’t remember seeing any of us before? You don’t remember a really big giraffe powered like us?_

_…Noo… Should I?_

At that, The Jon suddenly beamed.

_It really is all right then! I’m glad you don’t! Can you yodel?_

The completely unexpected question made her laugh again, but this time the combination of laughter and sheer confusion had stopped the barking and she could speak once more.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to yodel. What is yodelling?’ The humans all looked at her and The Jon giggled, then demonstrated.

When they had finally shut him up again, Piston said

‘I think someone had better tell me what’s wrong with green matter.’

‘She doesn’t know, Peter? You didn’t tell her?’ Annie asked, tsking at him. ‘She has a right to know that.’

‘We didn’t want to hurt you,’ came The Spine’s dark chocolate voice. He was standing in the doorway, Rabbit leaning his chin on his brother’s shoulder.

‘Hurt me?’

‘J-Just after we were built, we had to fight a herd of c-copper elephants, powered by green matter,’ Rabbit explained. ‘Th-they were made by Pappy’s nemesis, Thadeus Becile. The kids who built you found your power core in Africa, so…’ His voice trailed off.

‘So it must once have been part of one of the elephants,’ Peter said soberly.

‘We weren’t sure if it’d had any effect on you… and seeing the green core again..’ The Spine sighed. ‘It brought back bad memories. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner.’

‘But she doesn’t remember anything about elephants or giraffes!’ The Jon said happily, swinging his legs. ‘So everything’s fine.’

‘Yeah! Let’s go feed the ducks!’ Rabbit cried. He leapt forward, grabbed Piston’s hand and the next thing she knew, she was being towed through the labyrinthine passageways of Walter Manor. As The Jon and The Spine raced to catch up with them, Piston asked

_Spine? What were you afraid would happen with my core?_ There was pause. She could feel him thinking it through. _Please. I’d like to know the worst. That way I’ll know if… if it becomes a problem._

His reply was not in words. It was a memory.

 

The sky was not blue, but grey, clouded with the steam billowing from dozens of automatons. The ground shook under their feet, the ubiquitous dust jumping like a particularly excited set of fleas. Whether it was their own weight that made the world tremble so, or the weight of the monsters in front of them was unclear. The Spine puffed steam out of his smokestacks, wishing he could go back to San Diego, to before the weapons upgrades, to when the only thing he knew how to handle was guitar. He was scared, though he would never admit it, not to his brothers, not to his father, rarely even to himself.

‘I wish we didn’t have to do this,’ Colonel Peter Walter had sighed. ‘But people will die if we don’t. You understand, don’t you, boys?’ And they had nodded. They didn’t like it, but they understood.

The trembling became more violent as the two sides grew ever closer. They in range of each other and soon the flamethrowers and the missiles would commence their deadly symphony. And then everything stopped. Colonel Walter was giving Becile one last chance to give up his attack. The dust from their passage began to settle and as it cleared, The Spine got his first real look at the copper elephants. They were huge, but also partly skeletal, an eerie combination. A sickly green glow hung about them, gleaming off their copper hides like luminescent verdigris. But the worst thing about them wasn’t the glow or their size or the certain knowledge that they too were stuffed to the tusks with weapons. It was the operators that sat bolt upright at the controls. His eyes picked out the way their hands melded into the metal of the levers, the way their bodies sprouted from their seats like a bough from a tree trunk. Most of all, he saw their eyes: empty, flat, expressionless. Were they still alive? He found himself hoping against hope that they weren’t.

 

Piston came back to herself to find that Rabbit had dragged her all the way outside and into a graveyard. It was obviously the family’s plot: every stone had the name ‘Walter’ on it. They stood on the bank of a pond opposite several fat, sleepy ducks. Rabbit produced some bread, though where from Piston had no idea, and began tearing it into little pieces. The ducks took their heads from under their wings, waggled their tails and slid into the water to scull briskly across the pond and gobble up the bread.

‘Thank you,’ Piston said, turning to The Spine. ‘I understand now.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘It’s not your fault. _I’m_ sorry that I scared you all.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ The Jon said. ‘That’s not your fault either.’ He suddenly put his arms around her and squeezed. Then he stepped back again, grinning.

‘What was that for?’ Piston asked, not sure whether to be pleased or unnerved.

‘D-d-don’t tell me you’ve never had a hug before!’ Rabbit was quivering with indignation. When she shook her head, he leapt up and enveloped her in another hug that nearly knocked her off her feet. Her bellows protested as his grip prevented them from inflating. Then something hit her in the back. The Jon had joined in and Piston was slowly being crushed under the weight of two affectionate automatons. She turned desperate optics on The Spine, only to have them obscured by his chest as he threw his arms around all three of them.

She gave up trying to breathe, it wouldn’t hurt her for a few moments, and gingerly, she put one arm around Rabbit’s back and then hooked the other round behind her and patted The Jon. Unfortunately, that made them grip even harder. A robot’s hug was pretty uncomfortable, even for another robot, but as she stood, encased in living metal, she slowly began to understand why they had done it. Something about the embrace made her feel safe, but it was more than that. She felt happy, though she didn’t understand why the hug made her so. But there was still something else, Piston thought. Gradually, she relaxed and hugged Rabbit back with her one arm as she tried to grip The Jon with the other. They stood there for some time, not moving, heads and arms entwined, metal plates locking together as seamlessly as if they had been flesh and blood humans. The only sounds were the light breeze hissing through the scrubby grass, the disgruntled quacking of the ducks on the pond and the whirring, breathing hum of the four robots.

 

When at last they broke apart, it was with a gentle hiss of steam as they all sighed in unison. Something had changed with that embrace. Whereas before, Piston had been an outsider, someone they had helped but also had to be cautious of, now, now she was…

‘Welcome to the family, P-Piston,’ Rabbit said, his lips twitching as he smiled. ‘You’re one of us now.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, looking into Rabbit’s mismatched eyes, trying to get across what that meant to her. These three, they had always had a family, ever since they had been made, a family of humans and of robots. But she had not had that. Until she had met Rabbit and his brothers, she had not understood what loneliness was, because it had been her natural state and she hadn’t had the capacity to recognise it. The past week had been bitter-sweet, a course in what she had missed out on. But it seemed that families could be chosen and the Walter automatons had chosen her to be part of theirs.

They seemed to understand some of what she was feeling, even though she couldn’t vocalise it. The Spine smiled down at her, his emerald optics beaming too.

She felt a tug on the back of her ragged top and turned. The Jon’s blue eyes looked hopeful as they peered out from between his brass face plates.

‘You hug really well, Piston! Can I have another one?’ He was so sweet, she didn’t hesitate, but threw her arms around him, giggling as she did so. Then Rabbit wanted to know why The Jon had had two more hugs from her than he had, so of course she had to even the score.

She tilted her head enquiringly at The Spine and raised obsidian eyebrows.

‘Well, if there’s one going,’ he said, in his voice like thick honey. Being a good head shorter than The Spine, Piston leaned against his shoulder so that this time she wasn’t blinded by his waistcoat. She could feel the thrumming of his power core through her cheek vent and they moved together as his balance shifted and then shifted back again as his stabilisers kicked in. Was it her imagination or did they stand there for longer than they meant to?


	7. The Moving Finger or The Robot Birthday Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's update time again! Has it only been a month? Seems longer. The last chapter got a lot of hits, but I suppose that shouldn't really be surprising. It was full of cute robot hugs.  
> This was the first chapter I named with my theme. By the time I was writing Chapter 11, I'd decided I wanted to do the theme across the whole fic and then of course had to go back and find appropriate names for every single chapter. It took hours.  
> I have an apology to make in this chapter because I forgot to mention something: when I talk about 'Peter', it's always Peter VI and if both of them are in it at the same time, I number them. Hope I don't confuse you too much. I confuse myself way too much as it is.  
> If these notes are getting annoying, please tell me and I'll stop doing them unless there's something you really need to know. Thank you to you all for reading this far. You make it all worthwhile.

Annie Walter née Burnette had once thought that if her anniversary and birthday followed each other then her husband might stand a better chance of actually remembering them. As a scientist he tended to get rather absorbed in his work and forgot the rest of the world. Sadly, she had been mistaken and had to remind not only her husband, but now her son as well of the impending dates. She generally began throwing out hints about three months before, getting less and less subtle as it became clear her family hadn’t picked up on them. This year, Peter had promised to take them out for dinner for their anniversary and he had said that there would be a surprise for her birthday. Given the sort of surprise that usually happened in Walter Manor, Annie received this news with something less than excitement and something rather closer to abject terror. The stain still hadn’t come out of the carpet from the last time someone in the house had been given a ‘surprise’.

So when she received the first of the letters, she hoped that it was somehow all part of the elaborate plan for her birthday. Hoped, because she’d much rather think it was an unpleasant joke than something people actually meant.

 

Stan O’Connell looked up at the looming mass that was Walter Manor with much the same feeling he’d had on the eve of battle in Afghanistan. This was the point in his journey when he began seriously wondering why he had left the army to become a postman. He had never realised before applying for the job how dangerous it could actually be. Quite apart from killer dogs, random disgruntled householders who thought that he should know exactly where every single letter ever sent was at this precise moment in time and the certain knowledge that he was getting varicose veins, there was Walter Manor. The Walters did not normally get many letters, a fact for which Stan was ever thankful. It meant he didn’t have to go near the place. But today, half the mail seemed to be addressed to that dratted family and their… machines. He considered simply dumping the bag as near as he dared and running for it, but his professional pride wouldn’t let him. Groaning, he began trudging up the hill, his heart sinking much faster than he was climbing. The last time he had delivered the post here, he had discovered a hand inside the mailbox. It was made of silver metal and it hadn’t moved or anything, but the discovery had nearly given him a coronary and that was before the enormous metal robot had come charging towards him, waving its stump of a wrist. He couldn’t remember much of what had happened after that. There had been a laugh like a particularly sadistic hyena, something about rabbits and a soldering iron and then he had found himself back by his van, gulping for air as though he’d just been suffocated. It was an experience he didn’t want to repeat, but it looked as though he might have to.

 

Annie leaned her elbows on the windowsill, watching the postman in puzzlement. He moved slower and slower as he got nearer the house and he began peering around as though expecting to be mugged. When he opened the mailbox, he did it at arm’s length with his eyes closed. What on earth did he expect to find in there? A bomb? The postman opened one eye and then two, sighed and began shovelling letters into the box as fast as possible. As soon as the last one was in, he ran, sprinting down the drive as fast as his legs could carry him. Annie sighed. She recognised the look of someone who had encountered the robots unprepared. She opened the front door and went to get the mail. The sheer quantity of letters amazed her: they filled the box with no room to spare. Surely, they could not all be for her birthday? They fitted awkwardly in her arms and just as she stepped back inside, one slithered out of the pile. She bent to pick it up and lost her grip on the rest, the whole lot cascading out of her arms and carpeting the floor in white paper. Annie groaned, crouched down and began to gather them up again, her knees protesting as she did so. 

As she tidied them up, she realised that most of them were addressed to her son. Or it could be her husband. A few were obviously birthday cards for her and she put those to one side, but most of them said ‘Mr Peter Walter’ and without a numerical indicator, she wasn’t sure who to give them to. Several were addressed to the family and as she was now dying to know what had caused so many people to write to them, she added those ones to her own pile. Some of the letters were even addressed to the robots. This amazed her. The band received fan letters of course, but they were always sent to the PO box they rented, they were never delivered to the house. And normally, fans certainly wouldn’t have put things like ‘The Weird Walter Robots’ or ‘The Metal Freaks’ on the envelopes. A shiver trickled tortuously down her spine. There was something very wrong about all this, she was certain. She felt slightly dizzy, as though she was looking down the edge of a precipice, while rock was crumbling under her feet. The letters contained nothing good, but what should she do about it? She couldn’t open other people’s mail, even if it was her family’s. But she didn’t have to give them the letters yet. Annie gathered them all up again, except her birthday cards, and put them into her handbag, which everyone in the house was under strictest instructions not to touch, on pain of disassembly. Then she went to get breakfast.

 

Three rounds of toast and a cup of milky coffee later and she was feeling considerably bolder. Whatever was in these letters, it wouldn’t hurt her family, she would make sure of that.

 _And my family’s a little bigger than it was this time yesterday,_ she thought. _Poor Piston. I wish I hadn’t frightened her like that. I was just so worried about Peter! Why does fear for your child always come out as anger? Well, I’ll just have to make sure I make it up to her. At least she’s got us now._ Peter VI had filled his mother in on how Piston came to be at the Manor and he had also told her what only he and The Spine, because he had been there at the time, had known: that when they removed Piston’s left leg, they had found, daubed clumsily down her thigh in black paint, the words ‘RoboVixen 1000’. Annie knew enough about human nature to know exactly what Piston’s makers had created her for and the thought made her furious and more determined than ever to help the poor thing get her own life back. Piston hadn’t seen the writing on her leg, hadn’t known about it and Annie was damned if anyone was going to tell her. Her gaze fell on her handbag and she thought of the letters nested within. It was about time she went to see her tame guru.

 

Annie generally got up early, largely because the rest of the household didn’t. Although a very patient, kind woman, even she needed some time to herself. Early mornings were so tranquil. There were no mysterious explosions, no robots charging around corners in pursuit of stolen headgear and no random space dragons attacking the house. The only sounds were the creaking of floorboards as she climbed the stairs and the rustle of her own clothes. Just for this short time, the house and its occupants were at peace. 

She found him in his room, awake, though only just. He hadn’t yet got dressed and he was still wearing the pair of shapeless old tracksuit bottoms he used as pyjamas.

‘Sorry, dear. Do you want me to come back later?’ He shook his head and gestured for her to sit down.

‘How can I help, Annie?’ he asked, stifling a yawn and taking a chair for himself. ‘And happy birthday, by the way.’

She smiled.

‘Thanks.’ Then her smile vanished. ‘I think this is serious.’ She pulled the letters out of her handbag.

‘If they were all addressed to my son, I wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong, but I found these, too.’ She passed him a wad of envelopes. His eyes widened as he read the address. He read the next one and the next one, until he had gone through the handful, his expression becoming graver with each letter.

‘I wasn’t sure what to do with them,’ Annie confessed. ‘They can’t be anything good, but can I keep them from the others?’

The Spine did not answer. He just tossed the pile on his desk, all but one, the one addressed to ‘The Metal Freaks’. The envelope tore as he pushed his silver thumb under the flap and then pulled out the single sheet of paper. It was a perfect example of the stereotypical anonymous missive: letters cut out of a newspaper and glued haphazardly to the sheet, spelling out vicious, cruel, hurtful things.

 

‘THAT EVIL BITCH IS A TERRORIST AND YOU TOOK HER IN. HOW CAN YOU CLAIM TO BE LIVING THINGS? GO THROW YOURSELVES ON THE SCRAPHEAP WHERE YOU BELONG.’

 

Annie sucked in her breath, both hurt and outraged. The Spine read the words impassively, placed the letter on his desk, took another, slit it open and read that.

 

‘YOUR ALL MURDRERS U WORTHLES PEACES OF JUNK ROT IN HELL.’

 

Annie swallowed. The appalling spelling and grammar should have been laughable, should have made the message seem petty, but it didn’t. If anything, it made it worse. She glanced at The Spine, unsure what to say. But he showed no signs that he had been hurt by what he had read. On the contrary, it was as if he had read nothing more interesting than the agony aunt column in the local rag. He reached for a third letter. This one was handwritten, perfectly spelled and with impeccable punctuation and grammar.

 

‘To the owners of the band Steam Powered Giraffe,

 I feel it my duty to warn you that you have made a grave mistake in harbouring the robot responsible for the failed attempt to attack the Houses of Parliament. It will only do more damage. I know there are many who, as long as it is out of the country, do not mind where the robot is, but I am not one of them. It has killed at least one person and intended to kill hundreds more. Moving it will only change the location of the casualties, it will not change their existence. 

I have also heard that you treat your robots as though they were alive, which is not only absurd, but impossible. They can be programmed to act like humans, but they will never be human. They cannot understand emotion and this is what makes robots, and this one in particular, so dangerous. No doubt you will claim that it was programmed to do what it did and that that programme can be removed, but if the machine really does have artificial intelligence, as the police seem to think, then it will have learnt to commit such heinous crimes. 

I urge you to destroy the robot once and for all, in the name of justice and to protect the many innocents it will undoubtedly harm. If I were you, I would also put an end to your other robots. If we have gained anything by this horrific incident, it is the knowledge that machines we take for granted can be highly dangerous: ‘better safe than sorry’ as the saying goes. I realise my views will be unpopular with you and with many of the public, but I cannot help that. Sentimentality is of no relevance in this case. People may find these automatons amusing, but the attack last week showed us exactly what they are capable of and surely you can see that the risks outweigh any transitory entertainment value they may possess. I am not the only one realises this and if you do not disassemble the robot yourself, you may find the problem taken out of your hands. I do not write this as a threat, but because I feel you have a right to know what the situation is and to know what sort of monster you are shielding.’

 

Her hand trembling, Annie wiped tears of rage from her eyes.

‘Of all the vile, despicable-’ She launched into a series of epithets that Peter would have been surprised his mother had known let alone been prepared to use.

The Spine placed the letter back on the desk and drummed his fingers on it once.

‘I wish,’ he said quietly. ‘That I was powered by an ordinary steam engine.’

Annie halted in her tirade, staring at him.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Then I could burn them all, right now,’ he finished and she saw the emerald glow of his optics become a blaze of sheer fury. The desk creaked under his fingers. A slight twinge of apprehension flickered inside her. The Spine didn’t often get angry, not truly. What was he capable of in such a mood?

 _But this is exactly how those sons of bitches think who wrote the letters! God, if even_ we _start doubting them, what on earth will happen?_

‘What should we do?’ she said out loud.

‘For the moment,’ The Spine all but growled. ‘We have a birthday to celebrate. I’m not going to let them spoil the day.’

 

‘Surprise!’ As Annie stepped into the darkened living room, the lights flared and the family sprang out of an assortment of bad hiding places. The Jon had been under the table and he nearly set the buffet flying as he leapt out. Rabbit had been crouched behind the sofa, but his hat had stuck out over the top and both the Peters had hidden behind the curtains where they made very obvious bulges. Annie gasped and then began to laugh. The Spine, who had conducted her to the living room, was grinning.

‘Did you plan this?’ she asked him.

‘Peter’s idea. We didn’t want to leave it up to Rabbit and The Jon.’

Rabbit quivered in outrage.

‘I-I-I can throw just as good a party as you can, Spine! You just wouldn’t l-let me help.’

‘Rabbit, you wanted to have a parade and then you turned the table over when you couldn’t have your own way. My cup of oil went everywhere.’

‘Happy birthday, Mom,’ Peter said, stepping around the bickering robots to kiss his mother on the cheek. ‘Do you want food or presents first?’

‘The table poked its tongue out at me.’

‘Rabbit, tables don’t have tongues. And I wasn’t even halfway through my oil.’

‘They do have tongues,’ The Jon said brightly. ‘Just like people and shoes and lightbulbs.’

‘Presents, Peter? Did The Spine buy those as well?’

Peter VI looked wounded.

‘Mom, how can you think that?’

‘Because I’m your mother, dear. I know you better than anyone.’

‘Well,’ Peter confessed. ‘He did help.’

Annie suddenly realised who was missing.

‘Hang on, where’s Piston?’

‘I’m here,’ said a voice right behind her and Annie nearly jumped out of her skin. Piston had been hiding behind the door. She looked rather nervous.

‘Um… happy birthday, Annie?’

Annie beamed.

‘Thank you very much, my dear. Now, food I think, Peter.’

 

Peter had been quite right in leaving the preparations to The Spine. The party went smoothly, or at least, as smoothly as it could with four over-excitable robots in attendance. There was Annie’s favourite takeaway, pizza, a wise move since none of the men or the robots could cook anything worth a damn and the Beciles had the night off, and the table was laden with all kinds of afters and nibbly bits. There was water, oil and hydraulic fluid for the robots, there was Eton mess and apple crumble and peanuts and after-dinner mints for the humans and there was ice cream for everybody in just about every flavour it was possible to buy and a few, Annie was pretty certain, that it wasn’t.

‘It’s cold!’ Piston exclaimed when she tried her first spoonful.

‘That’s why it’s called ice cream,’ Rabbit pointed out. ‘Because it makes you s-scream.’ Everyone laughed and The Spine took it upon himself to correct Rabbit’s faulty etymology. The Jon decided that Piston needed to try every sort of ice cream they had until Peter V restrained him by pointing out that it wasn’t the robots who had to repair the damage done to their insides after an ice cream party.

‘What was your favourite?’ The Jon asked, his blue eyes sparkling. ‘Mine’s Platypus Surprise, but we couldn’t find any for today. The Ice Cream Man hasn’t been around in a while.’

‘The lemon sorbet,’ Piston said, without hesitation. ‘Who’s the ice cream man?’

‘A friend of ours,’ The Spine told her. ‘Only every time he comes round, I miss him,’ he added dejectedly.

Annie was beaming. She was surrounded by her family, no one was bickering, at least for the moment, and they had thrown her this wonderful party. All was right with the world. Except… Her thoughts drifted back upstairs to the letters that still lay on The Spine’s desk where they had been left this morning. A veil seemed to fall across her eyes for a moment, making the room and all its festivities grow dim. When it didn’t lift, she called

‘You mentioned presents, Peter?’ in an effort to restore her mood.

 

The presents were a mixed lot. Her husband had got her a book of patterns for knitted farmyard animals, the happy result of years of patient training on Annie’s part. Her son had been rather less receptive to this programme and tended to buy Annie things like spanners and drill bits: wonderfully useful things, but not to her. So this year she had decided to ask for something specific. Her battered old Beetle that she trundled round San Diego in had been in dire need of a service and Peter, despite spending most of his time repairing Piston, had managed to give it a thorough overhaul. She just hoped he hadn’t added anything while he was doing it. Ejector seats were all very well if you worked for the CIA, but they weren’t very practical for a middle-aged woman who wanted to pootle down to the shops for the day. The Spine, with his customary thoughtfulness had given her perfume. How he had known she wanted this particular scent, she didn’t know, but he seemed to have his ways of finding out. Her present from Rabbit was a beautiful, if slightly disturbing, painting of a woman in a garden. If you looked closely, all the leaves and flowers had distorted faces in them. The Jon pushed his present shyly towards her. It wasn’t wrapped and she picked up the little wooden box with interest. She opened the lid and the notes of ‘Out In the Rain’ drifted out, while a tiny mechanical Jon crouched and straightened and nodded. It was the most wonderful music box she had ever seen. Annie laughed in delight and kissed the Jon on the cheek. His hat fell off and he ducked hastily down to retrieve it. If he could have blushed, his face would have been scarlet.

‘I’m sorry,’ Piston said, looking down at her hands. ‘I don’t have anything for you. I didn’t know.’

‘That’s quite all right, dear,’ Annie told her firmly. ‘I’ve gained another member of my family and that’s the best present I could ever have.’

Piston looked up, startled and rubbed the back of her neck, pleased, but embarrassed.

 

The band played all through the evening and well into the night. They played ‘Happy Birthday’, which sounded a little odd on the kazookaphone, and ‘Clockwork Vaudeville’ and all of Annie’s favourites. And then they began at the beginning and played them all over again. But by far the most enjoyable part, for Annie, was watching Piston. Until that point, she hadn’t realised that the robot had never heard music before. It was such a common topic of conversation at Walter Manor, that it hadn’t even occurred to her. She watched Piston’s expression change from surprise, to awe and then to rapture as she listened with all her might to the robots’ sound. By the time they put away their instruments, Piston was cleaning her face of the black lines her tears had left and Annie was wiping her own eyes on her sleeve


	8. The Common Reader

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, kids, I hadn't forgotten you, but AO3 was being a bitch last night, so I gave up trying to post this chapter and went to bed.  
> Happy (belated) Mother's Day, everybody! Even if you aren't mothers or if you don't live in Britain like I do. Here's another chapter for all you lovely readers, common or otherwise. Yes, this week's chapter is named after a series of essays by Virginia Woolf. Sadly, I can't claim to have read them. Most of these titles are picked because they fit, not because of what's in the original (though there are a few exceptions to that, like last week's 'The Moving Finger'. If you haven't read it, do).  
> If I sound bouncier in this note that I have in previous ones, it's because my birthday presents and cake finally turned up. I'm always more cheerful when I'm full of mincemeat cake and fondant icing.  
> For once, I don't have any apologies to make, but I will refer anyone who would like to pull me up on it to my note about Tourette syndrome in Chapter 5. Right, I'll shut up now and let you get on with what you're here for!

 The Peters were furious. Annie had waited until the next morning to give them the letters and she had been right in thinking that every single one of them had contained a missive as small-minded, vindictive and callous as the next.

‘How on earth did these people survive into adulthood when they’re this stupid?’ Peter V raged, pacing angrily up and down and looking remarkably like a praying mantis.

‘It’s all my fault,’ Peter VI groaned, his elbows on his knees, hands linked behind his head. ‘I should have seen this coming.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ his mother said. ‘You didn’t write those foul letters and you couldn’t have done anything other than help Piston. Besides, it wasn’t your choice anyway. You said the robots decided for you. Peter, for God’s sake sit _down_.’

Her husband sat, meekly. There was no arguing with his wife when she used that tone of voice.

‘The question is not whose fault it is,’ Annie continued. ‘But what we’re going to do about it. I’m sure once people forget about the attack, this will all die down. In the meantime, do we tell the other robots?’

A sigh issued from the armchair in the corner, where The Spine’s lanky metal frame was ensconced.

‘I don’t want to worry them,’ he said. ‘But… I’m not sure we should hide this from Piston. At least we’re used to this reaction from people. She isn’t. She should know what she’s in for.’

Peter bit his lip.

‘Should I have revived her, if this is all she’s got to look forward to?’ he asked, stress creasing his forehead. ‘Prejudice and hate?’

‘Of course.’ All three of them spoke at once, then stopped. Finally The Spine continued.

‘She wasn’t even properly alive before, Peter,’ he said. ‘Now she is and if nothing else she has us. She has a family now and she’ll live long enough that people will forget there ever was an attack on Westminster Palace. Things might not be ideal now, but…’ It was true, of course, but they all knew how long it would take for the world to forget the incident. And that was quite apart from the ordinary prejudice the robots often suffered from. It would not be easy for Piston, to walk among humans, when everything about her screamed her inhumanity. And unlike the rest of them, she had not had over a century to get used to it.

The Spine levered himself out of the chair, titanium vertebrae stacking themselves up, one on top of the other.

‘I’ll tell her now,’ he said as his stabilisers balanced him. ‘There’s no point putting it off.’

 

He left the living room, which was still littered with the remains of last night’s party and paused, wondering where Piston would be.

 _Piston?_  he sent.

_Yes?_

_Could I talk to you?_

_Of course, Spine. I’m… I’m… Actually I’m slightly lost._

He smiled to himself. The Manor was not the easiest place to navigate.

_What can you see in front of you?_

_Just a wall. There’s three doors to my right and one to my left._

_Any staircases?_

_No. Wait a minute, there’s a painting on the wall behind me._

_What is it of?_ There was a long pause, so long The Spine grew anxious. _Piston?_

_…Sorry. I’m not sure what it’s of. There’s some blue and white in it and some pink. Oh, it’s people. A group of them and there are two small ones._

_Children?_

_Yes?_

_Then I know where you are. Stay there._

She was right up near the top of the house, standing next to a painting of Colonel Peter A. Walter I and family. The Spine recognised the picture. It had been Rabbit who had painted it, all those years ago. Now, half the painting was currently masked by Piston, who had her face pressed up against the canvas.

‘Looking closer at things is supposed to make them clearer,’ she complained, her voice a little muffled. ‘But everything’s blurrier than it was.’

‘You often have to look at pictures from further away,’ The Spine explained, smiling to himself again.

Piston straightened up and then leaned as far back as she could.

‘Oh, I see! Who are they, Spine?’

‘The man in the middle is Peter Walter I. He’s the one who made us. The lady is Iris, his wife and that’s their twin boys, Peters II and III.’

‘What’s that?’ She was pointing to a squiggle in the bottom left hand corner of the painting.

‘Normally, that’s where the signature of the artist would be, but Rabbit didn’t know what that was, so he just drew a rabbit.’

Piston put her head on one side and considered the squiggle.

‘Is that what a rabbit looks like?’

‘Not really, no. Erm… do you mind if we have that talk?’

‘Oh, that’s why you called me isn’t it? What did you want to talk about?’ She blinked her large, green optics at him and it took a moment for him to gather his thoughts.

‘I’m afraid,’ he said, then paused and tried again. ‘In the mail, yesterday, we got a lot of letters. They were… about you.’

‘About me?’

‘They believe…’ How could he tell she was hated? But he had to, she couldn’t face that unprepared. ‘They believe you’re still the same person you were a week ago.’ Would she understand? And had it really only been a week? It already felt as if Piston had been with them forever. He saw her eyes widen and expected her to cry, for oil run in rivers down her cheeks and for her to start that strange, harsh barking that Peter still hadn’t been able to correct. But she didn’t.

‘What’s in these… letters?’ she asked. ‘Exactly?’

‘You want to see them?’ The Spine said, surprised. She nodded.

 

He led her back through the maze of stairs and corridors to the sitting room. Annie and the Peters were still there and they looked up as the automatons entered.

‘You told her?’ Peter VI asked The Spine. ‘He told you?’

Piston nodded.

‘I wanted to know what they said, exactly,’ she explained quietly.

‘Well, here they are,’ Peter V said, indicating the heap on the coffee table. ‘Knock yourself out. Not literally!’ he added hastily at Piston’s look of alarm. ‘It’s just an expression.’

Piston nodded again, still baffled, and stepped forward. Her fingers straightened and close gently around the top ‘letter’. She surveyed it with mounting confusion.

‘Wha-what do these marks mean?’ she asked finally. ‘Is that wrong?’ she said when everyone stared at her.

‘No, of course not, dear,’ Annie hastened to reassure her. ‘But… you can’t read?’

‘What does ‘read’ mean?’ Piston was growing more bamboozled by the second. The people around her, flesh and metal, exchanged looks.

‘It means to understand what these marks mean,’ The Spine explained. ‘Why don’t I teach you to read first and then you can read these for yourself?’

‘O-okay…’

‘Don’t worry,’ the younger Peter said. ‘You’ll enjoy reading.’

‘I think I’ve still got some of your old baby books somewhere, Peter. We can start you off with those,’ Annie said encouragingly.

 

In the end, Piston had an audience for her first reading lesson. The Peters had disappeared to their respective workshops, but Annie sat knitting in the corner armchair and Rabbit and The Jon had got bored and come looking for the others. When she heard their clanking footsteps, Annie, thinking quickly, had scooped up the anonymous letters and hidden them in her handbag again.

It was a charming scene: the tall, elegant form of The Spine and Piston’s brass curves side-by-side, both holding one half of a picture book, and Rabbit and The Jon sitting cross-legged on the floor applauding and cheering whenever Piston got anything right.

For her part, Piston had initially been quite nervous. The letters had brought bad news and they had made The Spine and the humans unhappy. But she soon discovered that not all reading was like that. In fact, as the day wore on and she speedily memorised the alphabet then began to read short words and then longer ones, she found she was enjoying herself. The book had brightly coloured pictures in it that showed what each sentence meant so now she knew what a cat and all the other things the book mentioned were without The Spine having to explain it all to her. In the middle of sentence, she stopped and wondered aloud

‘Can everything be written down?’

‘More or less. Provided there’s a word for it.’

‘That’s amazing,’ Piston breathed, trying to comprehend the sheer number of words that could be read and all their possible combinations. Gears inside her head began to click faster and faster and there was an ominous grinding noise. But she ignored it. She was thinking of that all-encompassing consciousness that she had had for just the briefest of moments. For those few seconds, she had not only _seen_ everything, she had _understood_ it. And not just objects, but people and ideas and concepts. Everything she had learnt at Walter Manor had an air of maddening familiarity about it, like she had known it a long, long time ago and was only now being reminded of it.

‘Piston?’ She came back to herself with a start to find The Jon peering anxiously into her face. ‘Are you all right? Your eyes… looked funny.’

‘Funny in what way?’ Her gears were slowing down again.

‘Th-th-they were sort of flickering,’ Rabbit said, nudging The Jon aside so he could stare at her too. ‘They’re not doing it now.’

‘I’m fine,’ she reassured them and turned the page.

‘Are you sure? Your core isn’t doing anything, is it?’

‘Rabbit! You can’t say that!’ The Jon cried. ‘That’s meeeeaan!’

‘I-I was only asking, Piston!’ Rabbit said hurriedly.  He gazed up at her anxiously, mismatched eyes wide with apprehension.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. But she couldn’t help the drop in her spirits. Piston had almost forgotten the reason for her reading lesson, she had been enjoying it so much. But Rabbit’s words brought it sharply back to her. If even the other robots worried she would hurt somebody, what must the rest of the world think of her? She tried to carry on reading, but her voice stubbornly refused to do as it was told and the only sound she made was a dry splutter. Immediately, The Jon was next to her, his arms hugging her tightly to his chest, making nonsense sounds that were somehow very comforting.

‘I u-u-upset you, didn’t I?’ Rabbit said, looking away. Was it her imagination or was there a film of grease across his photoreceptors?

She cleared her throat with a noise like a sink draining.

‘No, Rabbit, you didn’t.’ It just made me wonder what – what other people, humans, will think of me.’

‘They’ll love you,’ The Jon said quietly, but firmly. After a second, he added ‘Maybe not right away. But everyone will love you. We do. It’ll. It’ll be alright. I know it will.’

‘And if it isn’t,’ The Spine said, emerald eyes meeting her own. ‘You have a family now. You have us.’

The Jon made a crooning noise. He had begun playing with Piston’s hair, stroking it over and over again when he realised how silky it was. In her attempts to move away and disentangle her hair from The Jon’s joints, Piston bumped into The Spine’s elbow. Her wires must have been particularly close to the surface at her waist, because the light touch made her squeak. Rabbit sat bolt upright, his eyes gleaming, and sidled up to her like an angular crab. He stretched out a red-gloved finger and poked her other side. She squealed again and for some reason began to smile. What was happening to her?

Annie, who had been watching them over her ever-clicking needles, asked

‘Are you ticklish?’

‘What does that mea-’ Piston began to ask, but she never got any further. Rabbit and The Jon had both mercilessly demonstrating. After a moment of breathless giggles, as the two ‘bots scratched and prodded at her, Piston felt a third touch, feather light, this time on her neck. Her shoulder twitched upwards as she cringed away. For some reason, she lost control of her bellows completely at that point and she gazed soundlessly up at The Spine as he joined in. She could dimly see Annie with her head in one hand and her knitting in the other, quaking with silent laughter. Why couldn’t she breathe? And why did all this make her feel so happy? At last she managed to take a breath and immediately released it again in shrieks of laughter, her mouth opening so wide as she grinned that her face plates ground against each other. And then, from the middle of what was now a squirming bundle of tangled metal robots, someone shouted

‘Rootless! Rootless in the wind!’ To Piston’s horror, it had been her who had yelled. In the few moments it took for the others to stop their tickling, she had shouted it again ‘Rootless in the wind!’

Everyone froze and four pairs of startled eyes turned to her. The laughter died in her throat. What was this? They hadn’t seemed surprised when she had laughed, so that must be the normal reaction to being tickled. But what she had just shouted, that must be wrong. As she thought it, she felt her mouth open and out came, not words, but the grotesque barking that had plagued her before. Oily tears rose unbidden to her eyes as the barking grew louder.

‘Piston, it’s okay,’ The Spine said, putting out a hand, but she shrank away from him. There must be something really wrong with her if she could ruin all that laughter without even meaning to. Maybe all this was caused by her green matter core. Maybe Peter shouldn’t have repaired her. Maybe… maybe she should never have been built. Despair crashing down upon her, she lurched to her feet and fled the room, ignoring the cries behind her, oil spotting a trail behind her and the noise of her barking reverberating around the Manor.


	9. Robot Search Party or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last few chapters seem to have been pretty popular and we've reached 100 hits! Hooray!  
> This chapter is another of my favourites, because it was so much fun to write. I get to introduce you to a new character too. I don't expect you to like Daphne. I don't and I wrote her. But she fits nicely in the story (at least I hope she does).  
> Haven't been doing much writing lately, partly because I've got a Hel of a lot of reading to do for my research project and partly because I've been rewatching all of 'The Professionals'. Not that this makes the slightest bit of difference to you, because it'll take me three months to post everything I've written so far and I don't have any intention of stopping yet. Besides, Easter is coming up and I'll have more time then, hopefully.  
> Thank you, my readers. You make all the difference. Have a good week, my dears.
> 
> P.S. This is the last 'party' title, I promise.

They couldn’t find her. The oil trail petered out on the first flight of stairs and she wouldn’t answer them on the Wi-Fi. They couldn’t even hear the barking. They each took a floor and combed it thoroughly, while The Spine tried to get QWERTY to help. But the Manor was so impossibly vast, so complex and had so many good hiding places that there was little likelihood of them finding her if she really didn’t want to be found. Games of hide-and-seek among the Walter family had been known to last for several weeks. Annie checked every room on the ground floor in case Piston had doubled back and her husband took his life in his hands and braved the extensive cellars and basements. Messages pinged back and forth between phones and robots, each one carrying an increasing level of concern and gloom. There was a brief, exciting moment when The Spine reported that QWERTY had found her on the fourth floor. They had all begun dashing in that direction, when another message informed them that QWERTY had in fact found The Jon, confusing one brass robot for another.

 _Promise me you won’t ever tell her that, boys, when we find her,_ Annie tapped into her phone. _She won’t take it well._

 _What if we don’t find her?_ Rabbit asked, after a pause.

 _We have to,_ The Spine sent. _You saw her reaction. What if she… does something?_ That thought was on everyone’s minds, though no one had wanted to be the one to voice it. The robots were more or less indestructible, at least for everyday purposes, but there _were_ ways. It was one of the reasons everyone had been so desperate to find her. The other was the lingering sense of guilt at their own reactions to her shouts. Peter VI had confessed to the rest of his family that he thought Piston had a sort of robotic version of Tourette syndrome, though he was at a loss to explain why she had it, and he had told them that if this was the case, there was nothing they could do but get used to the barking. The more Piston tried to stop it, the more she worried about it, the more often it would happen. Clearly, she had tics when she was excited as well as stressed.

 _I should have explained to her that lots of humans have this problem, as well,_ Peter VI typed, running his fingers through his rumpled blond hair with the other hand.

 _She might not have understood that, son. Or even believed it. It’s so hard to know what she does and doesn’t understand._ It was true. There were many gaps in Piston’s understanding of the world, obvious and not so obvious ones, but stranger were the things she already knew, that she couldn’t possibly have known. Why had she not asked what the ducks on the pond were, when she hadn’t even understood what a cat was?

 _There’ll be plenty of time to find out once we get her back,_ The Spine thought. He was still in the Hall of Wires, watching QWERTY’s screens for signs of the missing brass girl. He pinged call after call out to her across the echoing chasm of the ethernet.

 _Piston? Piston! It’s all right. Come back. Please… Piston!_ Then he fell silent, listening, waiting for a reply, though he no longer expected to hear one. Just to be sure, he even went through his emails, though he knew perfectly well she couldn’t have sent him one. She didn’t even know they existed and she could barely read. What he did find, however, was a series of increasingly irate messages from Daphne asking him why he hadn’t called her for the last ten days. He winced at the realisation that what with Piston’s dramatic arrival and the attempts to settle her in, he had entirely forgotten Daphne’s existence, and then made a mental note never to inform her of that unflattering piece of information. Even as he watched, another email came in from her. It asked him, with ice-cold politeness, why he hadn’t told her he’d be going to England to fight a killer robot and that if he thought that was how girls liked to be treated, he was wildly mistaken. If he ever wanted to see her again, she would meet him tonight. He was going to have to be on his most perfect behaviour from now on if he wanted to get back in her good books. He might have to grovel a bit too. For a moment, The Spine was torn between replying to Daphne, fixing up a place to meet her and assuring her of his eternal affection and the pressing need to locate, in the labyrinthine passages of Walter Manor that were every bit as dangerous as the one on Crete, a distraught and emotionally unstable robot.

_Spine!!_

He jumped, literally. There was a clank as his feet touched the floor again.

 _Have you found her?_ he sent quickly.

 _N-no…_ Rabbit sounded mournful. _You were quiet for so long, I thought you had._

 _Daphne’s angry at me,_ he confided. _She wants me to meet her tonight. I can’t ignore her. But Piston needs us._

_Tell her you have a family crisis and that you’ll meet her tomorrow instead. Annie._

_…What if we haven’t found her by then?_ The Spine asked.

_We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Peter VI._

 

They crossed the bridge.

‘But I can’t just go!’ The Spine insisted. ‘What about Piston?’

‘The chances of you being needed in the next three hours are pretty darn slim, Spine, you got to admit,’ Peter said. He currently had a marked resemblance to a blond panda, his white skin marred by the dark circles around his eyes.

‘But you need rest, Peter. You all do. We can keep looking.’

‘I think,’ Peter V said wearily. ‘That if you meet Daphne and sort things out, you’ll be more useful. After all, you won’t have this on your mind anymore. You’ll be able to concentrate better.’

The Spine considered this. It was logical, but that didn’t mean he was happy with it.

‘G-g-go,’ Rabbit told him firmly. ‘Dump her and come back straight away.’

‘Rabbit!’ cried four angry voices.

‘Rabbit, you can’t say stuff like that,’ The Jon wailed. ‘You’re so mean sometimes.’

But Rabbit’s voicing of his dislike for Daphne had made The Spine’s mind up for him. He put on his long black coat, made sure his hat was at the right angle and left the Manor, wondering if his Vow of Peace could be broken just once so that he could throttle Rabbit. It wouldn’t do him any damage. Not permanently, anyway.

 

Daphne Fairtree was waiting for him in her favourite swanky bar in the good part of town. She was wearing a black, halter neck dress which hugged her frame and ended a good way above her knees, a pair of killer stilettos and an expression to match. He wondered whether flowers had been such a good idea, but she spotted him before he could hide them behind his back. Her expression didn’t change. The Spine swallowed and made his way through the press of the crowd. Possibly, it was his imagination that people were getting out of his way even quicker than they usually did when faced with a robot who easily cleared six foot. Inclining his head to Daphne, he presented her with the flowers. She didn’t take them, so he laid them on the table next to her and sat down, shrugging off his coat. There was a very nasty silence and if The Spine could have begun sweating out of nerves, he would have done. As it was, steam began to build up inside him, until he had to open his mouth and let it escape. The cloud passed right across Daphne’s face and her expression became even more unpleasant.

‘Sorry, Daphne,’ he said hastily. Steam was one thing that always annoyed her.

‘For scalding my face or for ditching me?’

‘For the steam. I didn’t ditch you, Daphne.’

‘Really?’

‘It was-’

‘A family crisis, yeah. Doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me sooner. You could at least have said you were leaving the country.’ Both her arms and legs were folded, which wasn’t a good sign.

‘Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry, Daph, it was thoughtless of me.’ There was no point in offering excuses, he _had_ been thoughtless. Her arms uncrossed. The Spine felt a tiny ray of hope.

‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked, pre-empting her.

Daphne pursed her crimson lips for a second, sniffed and said

‘I’ll have a red wine.’

The Spine mosyed over to the bar, where he had less trouble than normal getting in. But then he ran across an unexpected difficulty: the barman wouldn’t look at him. After seven other people had pushed in and been served, The Spine cleared his throat loudly and the barman finally looked up.

‘Yes?’ he said, coldly.

‘A Merlot please. And a glass of water.’ Daphne had got upset the first time she had seen him drink oil. The barman plonked the glasses down and turned abruptly away after taking The Spine’s money. Somewhat perplexed, the silver robot returned to their table, where a young drunk was leaning over Daphne, slurring what he apparently thought were sweet nothings into her ear. The Spine stepped up and tapped the man on the shoulder. The drunk looked round and then up. The Spine was a good six inches taller than him, plus the hat.

‘Might I ask you to leave this young lady alone?’ he said politely to the drunk, who sobered up with impressive rapidity and sidled away.

The Spine placed the drinks on the table and sat back down. Daphne uncrossed her legs and put a hand on his sleeve.

‘Thanks, Spine. I hate it when that happens. Do you remember when we met?’

How could he forget? The situation had been almost exactly the same, though the bar had been a little less salubrious and the drunk rather more aggressive. The Spine hadn’t touched him, but after the man had tried to injure him and shattered his own knee in consequence, he had gone away, leaving The Spine with a grateful Daphne almost in his arms. If he was honest, The Spine wished these occurrences weren’t quite so common, but Daphne was the sort of girl who attracted attention. Sometimes that made him jealous, but other times it gave him a sort of glow to know that of all the men, the _human_ men she could have had, she had chosen him, the one made of titanium.

‘Spine!’ He jolted out of his reverie, stabilisers kicking in to keep him on his chair.

Daphne was looking cross again.

‘I was talking to you!’

‘Sorry, Daph.’ He seemed to be saying that a lot this evening. ‘I was remembering.’

Her forehead uncreased.

‘Oh. Well, you should still have been listening. I asked you what sort of family crisis you had.’

The Spine paused for a second before he answered. He hated lying, but he knew that Daphne would not appreciate being informed that he had been distracted from her by a female robot. So he carefully avoided mentioning that Piston was a girl when he told Daphne about the new addition to their household, the one that was having severe emotional difficulties. Neither did he mention that it was the same robot they had gone to England to stop. With any luck, Daphne would think they were two different automatons. He made it sound as though Piston was one of their brothers, lost for a century inside the cavernous manor and only just now returned to them. He said all of this without actually lying, at least with the strictest interpretation of the term. He wished it was the truth; it would have been much easier to deal with.

By the end of the story, Daphne was leaning towards him across the table, bad temper forgotten. She placed a hand on his and stroked the cool metal with her thumb.

‘Thanks for telling me, Spine. I… I didn’t realise all this was happening. I’m sorry.’

‘No, I should have told you sooner.’ With the air clear between them, The Spine felt much more hopeful. He hadn’t realised how heavily the matter had been weighing on his shoulders this last day. His glowing emerald optics took in Daphne’s honey-coloured waves and her eyes that were such a striking shade of blue. And then his black rubber lips closed upon hers. Her hand reached up and snagged his hat, dropped it on the table and then returned to run scarlet nails through his hair.

‘My God, do you see that? Must be like kissing an exhaust pipe.’

Daphne broke away from him, turning to look for the owner of the snide voice.

‘Ignore them, Daph,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s their problem.’ She cast her eyes round once more, then turned back, but the moment was gone, the spell broken. The Spine was acutely aware of his humming, whirring gears, the slight hiss of pistons and stabilisers and his cold, metal chassis: in short, everything that marked him out as inhuman. It seemed Daphne was reminded of it too and they sat in silence for some time before The Spine thought to ask after her family. An hour of banal small talk followed until they both decided it was time to leave. The Spine automatically offered to walk her home and it wasn’t until she had accepted that they both realised that this meant extending the awkward conversation. At last, they fell silent, preoccupied with their own uncomfortable thoughts. When they finally reached her flat, The Spine went to tip his hat goodnight to her, only to realise he had left it in the bar.

He hurried back, but his hat was gone and no one he asked seemed to have seen it. The Spine sighed in frustration, hissing out a cloud of steam. He had other hats, but this one was his favourite. He’d been given it by a burlesque dancer while playing in a speakeasy in 1923. Disconsolately, he left the bar.

He had barely got out of the door when the snide voice from earlier hailed him.

‘Hey, Exhaust Pipe. Forgot something?’ It was a girl, obviously rather the worse for drink, in a leopard print, skin tight miniskirt and an off-the-shoulder top to match. The costume put him uncomfortably in mind of Piston. She was also dangling his hat from her fingers, taunting him.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ The Spine said, reaching for it. She flicked it out of his grasp, though the movement caused her to stagger on her enormous heels and she tottered backwards, giggling. It wasn’t the first time such a trick had been played on him. Memories of Aisne, of RAF Boxted and of Da Nang, surfaced from some dark corner of his mind, where they had been pushed away, but never forgotten.

‘Tell you what,’ the girl said, swaying like a jubilant football crowd. ‘You kiss me like you kissed her and I’ll give it back. Whadda you say?’ But she got no reaction from the tall, handsome metal man, for Memory had stolen him away.

_‘Jump! Go on, jump!’_

_The Spine watched in horror as The Jon tried desperately to reach the pack that the engineer was waving above his head. One brass hand was clapped on his green cap to keep it in place, the other was clawing desperately above him as he jumped up and down. Raucous laughter filled the room as the shift that had just finished filed through the doors and went to join the crowd to see what the fun was. He strode across the mess hall and snatched the pack away, thrusting it at The Jon, who took it and scurried over to Rabbit. The Spine had rarely felt rage like this. His core blazed in his chest, steam gushing from his smokestacks and his very oil seemed to be burning, racing in fiery streaks through his conduits. He had been tormented before, but he wasn’t about to let it happen to his brother, not to sweet, inoffensive, childlike Jon. He remembered how much stronger than a human he was half a second before his fist touched the soldier’s face and he stopped himself, just, from making contact. For a second, the airman paled, but then he rallied quickly. The mess hall had fallen completely silent._

_‘Why don’t you do it?’ he jeered. ‘What kind of coward are you?’_

_‘If I hit you, I’d kill you,’ The Spine told him flatly, dropping his arm and turning away._

_The man snorted._

_‘You just don’t have the balls, tin man!’_

_The crowd that had formed was muttering and pointing, but The Spine ignored them and took a step towards Rabbit and The Jon, who were huddled in a corner, trying not to draw attention to themselves._

_‘You make me sick, you three do, prancing around, pretending to be human. You’re nothing but a set of fancy tin cans!’_

_The Jon began to sob, but very quietly so that no one would notice._

_The Spine stopped walking but didn’t turn back around. He wanted so much to hurt the airman, to stop him saying those things, but he knew how it would end. Human life was more important, as they had been repeatedly told in both wars. It didn’t matter if The Jon was having nightmares that left him screaming, if Rabbit had been stuttering so badly lately that he no longer said anything, if The Spine was forced to count the reasons over and over again why he would never be considered human, as long as they kept obeying orders. Because that was all they were good for and the human war came first. If they didn’t want to play by the rules… well, there was always a shortage of metal._

_He half-turned towards the airman again, tempted to hit him anyway and hang the consequences._

_‘Come on then! You keep claiming you’re alive, so prove it! Be a_ man _!’_

_A sharp pain jolted through him, even though all his systems were intact and he vented steam angrily. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rabbit trying soundlessly to comfort The Jon. He couldn’t abandon them because of his temper. So, though it cost him every ounce of willpower he had, he turned away from the man’s taunts, trying to look as if they hadn’t struck him so sharply._

_As he collected his brothers and ushered them out of the mess, laughter broke out again behind them and shame scorched his face plate._

Darkness pressed in on him as he surfaced, only partially dispelled by the light from the windows behind him. It took him a moment to remember where he was and what had triggered the memory. He seemed to be getting lost in thought an awful lot these days, ever since… but he wouldn’t think of that. The drunken girl had vanished, bored no doubt by his lack of reaction and his hat lay discarded in a puddle at his feet. He bent and picked it up. He tried to brush off the muddy water, but the hat was already soaked. It was a trivial thing: a trip to the dry cleaners would sort it, but it was the last straw for The Spine. Stumbling almost blindly through the sodium-lit streets, he tried desperately to keep control, but at the foot of the hill leading up to the Manor, it escaped his grasp and droplets of oil began to slip unbidden from the corners of his eyes.


	10. Endless Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's finally the Easter holidays and I'm hoping that means I'll have more time to write, because I've started to catch up with myself. I'm only 11 chapters ahead of the published story now, rather than 13! If I'm honest, the holiday will probably just give me more time to play Assassin's Creed and Dragon Age than to write, but I'll try.  
> Hope you guys are still enjoying this story and that you're ready for a bit more on green matter.  
> Happy Easter holidays/Ostara/Spring Equinox everybody and let's hope winter doesn't come back again until we've had summer and autumn this time!

There was a crack in the roof where two tiles didn’t meet properly and the rains of over a century had rotted away the wooden beams beneath. A single silver shaft of light stole in through the gap, glinting off the dust motes and sending small spiders scurrying for the dark corners of the attic. The light gradually inched its way down the opposite wall, pausing a little way off the floor. It regarded the robot for a while before deciding to continue. It polished her hair to a false shine and turned her brass face to platinum, but it skirted round the odd, sickly green glow emanating from her optics.

Piston gazed right into the moon’s eye, seeing, but not thinking. She wasn’t sure how long she had been up here. It might have been hours, it might have been years. Either way, it didn’t bother her. The barking had stopped at some point and so had the tears: black, crusted trails marring her face were the only evidence left of her distress. For now, she didn’t think or feel or move, she simply was.

 

The light became unnerved by the way Piston was staring at it and moved off across the attic to startle a very lazy bat.

 

The disappearance of the moon from her vision had no effect on the brass girl. She simply stared at the stars instead. No one called out to her now, for which she was grateful. It meant she didn’t have to feel guilty about not replying. Maybe they had given up looking for her. She hoped so. Then she wouldn’t have to face them. She could just stay here, forever, watching the sky change day through day and year through year.

 

A small cloud drifted across the moon, panicked to find it was all alone and disappeared hurriedly over the horizon. The night wore on.

 

What was that? There had been a sound, just audible above the heaving breath of the wind in the rafters and the night time creaking of the house. Her attention shifted away from the sky for a moment, but she couldn’t hear anything else.

There it was again, louder this time. It was like the wind, but more of a hiss… or a sigh. In spite of herself, Piston felt a tendril of curiosity. Was someone up in the attics with her? Had they found her? She didn’t really have the energy to move, so she stayed where she was, now just listening, to the wind and the creaking house and… yes, the sigh came again. And then there was almost silence. But Piston was left with the definite feeling that someone else was in the attics, in a nearby room. Half-annoyed at being disturbed, but lacking the impetus to actually speak, she sent a message over the Wi-Fi.

_…Who’s there?_ She felt shock come across the connection and then The Spine’s voice said

_Piston!?_

_…Yeah…What’re you…doing up here?_

He heaved another sigh, much louder this time and she realised he was only on the other side of the wall. Concern flickered into life in her still heart.

_…Are you… all right?_

_I’m fine. Are you okay? Where are you?_

_…What’s up… Spine?_

_Nothing. I just wanted to look at the sky._

She wanted to believe him, to sink back into that thoughtless, untroubled state of existence, but for some reason, she couldn’t. She stayed quiet, hoping the nothingness would engulf her once more. But her silence seemed to do the trick, because all of a sudden, The Spine was telling her everything, about Daphne, about the rude drunk girl and about that time in the mess hall at RAF Boxted.

And for the first time in her life, Piston grew angry. Into the dried-up riverbed of her own emotions, there poured a torrent of pure rage, sweeping away her listless mood as though it had never been.

‘How _dare_ they?’ Her voice filled the attics, even though it was dry and hoarse and steam gushed out of her mouth and cheek vents.

‘Piston?’ The Spine sounded nervous. ‘It’s okay. It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course it matters! And you said yourself it happened again tonight. Oh, if I could get my hands on that girl!’

‘Don’t,’ he said, firmly. ‘It’s not worth it.’

She saw his reasoning, albeit grudgingly, but that didn’t stop her calling the girl and everyone who had ever insulted the robots a lot of extremely rude names she hadn’t been aware she knew. After quite a long time, she ran out of both invectives and fury and she subsided. From the other side of the wall, she heard The Spine whistle.

‘Where did you learn all that?’ he asked, sounding half-shocked, half-admiring.

‘I’m… not actually sure. I think I heard Peter say some of them.’ Now the floodwaters were settling, an unpleasant question occurred to her. ‘Is it my fault?’

‘What do you mean? How could it be your fault?’

‘All those letters and you said everyone at the bar was avoiding you. Have I given robots a bad name?’ For a long moment, there was silence and Piston felt the lethargy begin to creep over her again, now her anger had abated.

‘Piston, listen to me very carefully,’ The Spine said. His voice sounded particularly deep. ‘It’s possible that what happened in Britain is behind this. But if so, that _doesn’t_ make it your fault, you hear? You couldn’t help it. And anyway, there’re always people like that girl. There’s always someone who’ll try to prove we’re inferior.’

_That doesn’t sound very comforting._

_No, I suppose it’s not. I just meant that you didn’t tell her to act like that. It was her decision to be… well, I think you’ve already covered that point pretty well._

Piston gave a quiet mental chuckle.

_…Yeah… I suppose… you’re right…_

_Piston, are you okay? You sound tired. Have you powered down recently?_

_…Don’t know… Don’t know…how long… it’s been…_

_You’ve been up here almost two days._

_…Oh…_

There was one very bright star shining through the gap in the roof. She watched it idly. Was it a star, or was it Venus? ...Did it matter?

‘Piston?’

_…Hmm?_

‘Where are you?’ The Spine sounded unnecessarily concerned. ‘I’m coming to find you.’

_…Here…other side… of the wall…_ A muffled clatter came through the wood and plaster and she was vaguely aware of his footsteps moving around the attic. This room could only be accessed through several others and The Spine had some trouble navigating the rabbit warren, but at last a green glow began to filter into the room, signalling his arrival.

 

‘Piston!’ She was slumped against the wall like a broken doll, head lolling to one side and limbs spread out across the floor. Her eyes were so dim they were barely glowing at all and for one horrible moment, The Spine thought she was dead. He dashed jerkily to her side, colliding with old pieces of furniture as he did so, and dropped to his knees.

_…Oh… hello…_

‘Piston, what’s happened?’

_…What… do you mean?_

‘This isn’t normal,’ he told her, trying to instil some sort of urgency in the stupefied robot. ‘I’ve never seen anyone else like this.’

_… I just… came here… to get away… It stopped…_

‘The-the barking?’ he asked, half-afraid to remind her.

_…The barking… and the tears… and then… everything… It was nice…_

Severe depression could do that, he knew. Emotions were shut off because they were too overwhelming. But that shouldn’t have any effect on her power levels and from what he could tell, they were at rock bottom. Could it be her core? Blue matter cores gave a steady output, but green was much more erratic.

‘Has this happened before?’

_…Don’t know…_

‘It might be your core. Think. Has anything even remotely like this happened?’

_…Maybe…_

The Spine swallowed his frustration.

‘Could you expand on that?’

_…You know… I said… my core made me… alive?_

He nodded, then wasn’t sure if she had seen the movement and said

‘Yes?’

_…When it flares… I get… more alive… somehow…_ Agonisingly slowly, she explained what she meant and a lot of things about Piston suddenly made much more sense. If she had momentarily seen _everything_ , that explained why she sometimes knew things she couldn’t.

‘When there’s a power surge, your mind expands and when levels are low, it contracts?’ he asked, to make sure he had understood.

_…Mm-hm…_

‘But that was before Peter improved the connection to your core. What if,’ he said slowly, working it through in his head. ‘What if it’s still unstable, but the power level fluctuates much more slowly and not so severely? So at the moment, it’s pretty low and that’s why you feel this way. Can you actually move?’

There was a moment of silence and then one of Piston’s fingers twitched. Her hand raised itself half an inch from the dusty floorboards, trembled and then dropped back again with a slight clank.

‘Is that it?’ The Spine said, horrified. She was effectively paralysed.

_…Yeah…_

‘We need to get you to Peter, see if he can do something about this.’

_…How?_

‘I’ll carry you.’ He leaned forward to pick her up, but she stopped him.

_…Don’t… want to…_

‘But you can’t move. We have to do something!’

_…Why does… it matter?_

The Spine was shocked into silence and he remembered what Piston had said the very first time she had woken up.

‘Piston,’ he said cautiously. ‘What’s the first thing you remember after the rooftop?’

_…Erm…Waking up… in Peter’s lab… Why?_

‘Can you remember what you said?’

_…Couldn’t speak… kept glitching… remember?_

‘You don’t remember anything before that?’

_…No…why? …Did I… do something?_

Should he tell her? _Could_ he tell her? How did you inform someone that their first words upon waking had been in dismay that they hadn’t died? For once feeling unusually spine _less_ , he decided against telling her. It would only hurt her even more.

‘No, nothing happened. I just wondered.’ He was counting on her lethargy not pursue the point and to his relief, she didn’t.

_…Okay…I’ll just wait…If it’s… temporary… it’ll pass off…_

‘What if it isn’t?’

Her shoulders twitched, as though she was trying to shrug.

‘All right,’ The Spine said, coming to a decision. ‘I’ll stay with you and if it nothing happens by morning, I’m taking you to Peter whether you like it or not.’

There was a weak laugh and then she asked

_…But you…need rest… don’t you?_

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he said. ‘How’re your systems doing? Do you need water? Oil?’

_…Don’t know…_

Of course. In her current state, she had almost no awareness of her own body. She would be unable to tell if her boiler was running dry or not.

‘I’ll get you some anyway.’ As he stood up, he half-expected her to stop him, to tell him to stay, but she didn’t. She just carried on gazing vacantly at the roof. A twinge of sadness tugged at him, entirely separate from the melancholy brought on by his date. He didn’t like seeing Piston like this, but he didn’t have any way of helping her.

 

The water seemed to have some effect. At least, she managed to drink it, although he did have to hold the glass for her. She blinked a couple of times, which in itself was something of an improvement, and she sounded just a little brighter.

_Thank you… Spine._

‘Not at all,’ he said. He cleared a space next to her, by the simple expedient of pushing until the furniture gave in under the onslaught and moved aside. Some of it collapsed entirely.

_Hope that… wasn’t important…_

The Spine grinned, completely unabashed and happy to hear her making a joke.

‘Nah. Most of it’s stuff Rabbit already broke. Besides, if it’s sat up here for fifty years without being useful, chances are it won’t ever be.’ He settled his lanky frame beside her. there was silence then, for a time. Not the awkward, agonising chasm that had opened up between Daphne and him, but something much more peaceful, for all that it was induced by Piston’s… illness? But if that was how she was made, it couldn’t be wrong. It was just her.

_Spine? Would you… would you… mind singing… for me?_

He looked down at her. She hadn’t moved, her optics still fixed on the ceiling, where, he now realised, there was a star-filled crack in the roof.

‘What would you like me to sing?’

_…Anything…_

Even though he spent a great deal of time singing to people, The Spine felt really quite pleased by her request. Something cheerful, that was what was needed. He reached the chorus of ‘Me and My Baby’ before he decided it had probably been the wrong choice. This Saturday night hadn’t been particularly fun and he wasn’t sure where he stood with Daphne at the moment. He faltered and then his voice died away.

_Too close… to the mark?_

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. Piston had understood that, even in this state, without him telling her. That was quite amazing really. Many people wouldn’t have even realised there could be a problem. He scanned his memory banks for a song that was happy, didn’t require a harmony (he was good, but not _that_ good) and didn’t have anything to do with love in any way whatsoever. ‘One-Way Ticket’? No, that had love in too. Why did everything they write mention it somewhere? In the end, he sang ‘Clockwork Vaudeville’ (without the harmonising) and ‘Captain Albert Alexander’ and by the end, he was feeling distinctly better and Piston’s eyes were, he thought, glowing a little brighter.

 

As the night drew towards dawn, songs gave way to stories. The Spine recounted many of the robots’ famous, and infamous, exploits and, gradually, the lethargy began to seep away from Piston’s mind and body.

_What’s a speakeasy?_ she asked when The Spine began to tell her how he had got his hat. That led to a complex explanation of prohibition, the Volstead Act and the eagerness with which humans regard the destruction of their own livers.

_What’s a burlesque dancer?_ was the next question. The Spine shifted, embarrassed. He tried to explain in an aloof and dignified way, but he could tell she wasn’t buying it and in the end, the entire story about Fiona and her legs came out. That wasn’t even something he’d shared with Daphne, who didn’t like to hear about other women he’d known, even if they had been dead for over forty years. Dead… He heaved another tremendous sigh.


	11. Breakfast at Tiffany's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter everybody! I hope you all have a wonderful day and don't make yourselves too sick from all that chocolate. I was tempted to publish a blank page as an April Fool's joke, but in the end I decided I couldn't be that mean.  
> This chapter, I will admit, doesn't contain a huge amount of plot, but it was quite fun to write (as this entire fan fiction is, if I'm honest) and so I hope you lot will find it at least vaguely entertaining. For once I angled the chapter around the title, which I know you're not really supposed to do, but it was only the bit at the end and it fitted quite nicely, so what the hell.  
> Also it turns out that the Easter holidays don't allow you more time to write, not when you've gone back to working at Sainsbury's (cue more random ideas - see the very first chapter for my opinions on the effects of supermarket work upon the little grey cells), you have to write a 4000 word research project and Assassin's Creed III is calling you. If you've been paying attention, you'll see that my predictions in the notes of my last chapter have come true.  
> And now I shall stop waffling on about all this random shit that you don't want to read anyway and give you the actual chapter:

This time it was golden light that slipped in through the crack in the roof and suddenly came across two robots sitting on the floor. Their eyes glowed brilliantly in the dim attic in two similar, but still different, shades of green.

 _Good morning,_ Piston said politely. Whether it was the dawn light or her power core kicking back into action, she was definitely feeling much more the ticket and she hoped The Spine was too. Of course, the sunrise didn’t actually solve any of their complicated emotional problems, but it went someway to lifting the mood at least.

‘Good morning to you too, Piston,’ The Spine said with his usual courtesy. ‘How do you feel now?’

 _Much better, thank you. I can move now._ She lifted a hand above her head so that the new sun’s light had to negotiate round her fingers.

The Spine blew out a plume of steam.

‘Good. I was worried it would be, you know, permanent.’

_I wasn’t at the time, but looking back… It’s scary how close I came to stopping completely. I-I could have sat up here for years and gradually faded away. And I wouldn’t have cared._

‘But it didn’t happen. And it won’t, we’ll make sure of that.’ The Spine was good at comfort, better, she suspected, than he thought.

It was her turn to sigh now.

‘What’s wrong?’

 _I’m embarrassed. How can I face everyone after running off and making them worry? And… what if it happens again? The shouting,_ she added quickly. _Not the running off._

‘So what if it does?’

That brought her up short.

_Huh?_

‘What does it matter?’ The Spine repeated. ‘Why is it important?’

 _But…but everyone stopped when it happened. It’s like the barking. It’s not normal!_ she all but wailed.

The Spine turned his face to her, emerald photoreceptors looking directly into her own. There was something immeasurably sad in the gaze that held hers, that spoke eloquently of years of pursuing Normality, only to find it slip through his grasp.

‘We aren’t normal, Piston,’ he said quietly. ‘We never will be. Not you, not me, not Rabbit and certainly not The Jon. But then, Peter and his parents aren’t normal either. Daphne isn’t. Our postman probably isn’t. *****  Sometimes, I wonder if normal even exists.’

If it did, then he would be doomed to disappointment, forever reaching for a goal he could not achieve. But if it didn’t, then he would have to give up the hope lent to him by that addictive dream and in some ways, she saw, that would hurt him even more.

‘There’s something else you should know,’ he carried on, oblivious to her examination of his psyche. ‘Some humans have something called Tourette syndrome. It’s quite like what happens to you. Their bodies do things they can’t control and nobody knows why it happens. So your problem isn’t unheard of.’

_That…that helps. Thank you, Spine._

‘It’s my pleasure, Piston.’ His voice had the smooth consistency of black treacle. ‘As for that other, I suspect Annie will be cross with you, but it’s because she worries about you.’

‘Why?’ They both blinked when they realised she had spoken out loud. The Spine smiled and said

‘Because she loves you. You’re family.’

Piston frowned, her face plates squeaking slightly after almost two days of no use at all. She didn’t really understand when the household talked about families and love. They had explained to her how biological families were made, not without a certain amount of giggling, ****** but apparently you could also be adopted into them. But what love actually was and what that had to do with families was still beyond her comprehension. Perhaps it was something you had to experience. For now, she just accepted The Spine’s words, although they both knew she was only pretending to understand. At any rate, they assuaged her fears that Annie worried about her because she could be dangerous. No matter how often she was assured that her programming had been wiped and that her power core was no more likely to explode than the other robots’, that thought kept on returning, like a boomerang with a grudge.

It must have shown on her face because The Spine peered into her eyes again.

‘It’ll take time, Piston. We’ve been around since 1896 and if anything we’ve got more problems now than we had then.’ He paused. ‘That wasn’t comforting, was it?’

Piston laughed, out loud this time.

‘Not really, no. But… I think I get what you mean. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that make us more normal? Like you said, humans have problems too.’

The Spine tilted his head and considered.

‘I suppose you’re right.’

 

‘And don’t you _ever_ do that to me again, young lady, _is that understood?_ ’ Annie’s outstretched finger was trembling. The relief she apparently felt was disguised, very heavily disguised, as anger, and if it hadn’t been for The Spine’s warning, Piston was fairly certain she would have bolted back to the attic again. As it was, she took the dressing down meekly and apologised for worrying everyone.

Annie looked down her nose, or rather up it as Piston was several inches taller than her, then her stern expression melted and she embraced her with a great sigh of exasperation, relief and joy. Piston hugged her back, gently because humans were fragile, and felt quite a lot of tension disperse. They broke apart and without so much as a pause, Annie rounded on The Spine. He clearly hadn’t been expecting this and he backed away from the woman who was nearly a foot shorter than him. Piston’s lips twitched in a smile that she hastily concealed.

‘And what, precisely, did you think you were doing, staying out all night and not telling us where you’d be? How do you think we felt when we found you hadn’t been back? That we suddenly found we had _two_ missing robots? Did it cross your mind at all?’

The Spine had suggested that they both get some rest as they watched the dawn, so they had both powered down for a few hours. Unfortunately, a few hours had become half a day and they had gone back downstairs to find the family in uproar. They were now regretting that they hadn’t simply stayed up the entire night.

‘I didn’t stay out all night, Annie. I was back by half-nine.’

But that didn’t appease her.

‘Oh and you couldn’t find the three seconds it would have taken to pop your head in and say you were back, I suppose? And if you were back by half-nine, where have you been?’

The Spine looked down, the brim of his hat covering his eyes.

‘Sorry, Annie,’ he muttered. Piston felt quite sorry for him. He had spent all evening apologising to Daphne, all night sitting up with her and this afternoon would be spent apologising to his family. He didn’t deserve that.

There was a sound in the hallway, rather like someone knocking over a suit of armour and as Walter Manor did not (currently) have any suits of armour in the hallway, everyone deduced the presence of Rabbit and The Jon. It was indeed that mischievous pair, who flung themselves on Piston and knocked her bodily to the ground, where, still weak, she had some difficulty extricating herself from their enthusiastic welcome. Had Piston ever been greeted by a pair of over-affectionate Great Danes, she could have compared it to that.

‘You’re back!’ The Jon cried happily. ‘Did you have a nice vacation?’ He had got it in his head, The Spine had explained as they had snuck guiltily downstairs at midday, that Piston had left because she was going on holiday and no one wanted to correct him. It would have been pointless to try anyway. It was just the way The Jon understood things.

‘It was very…calm,’ she said, which was true after a fashion.

‘A-are you still upset with me?’ Rabbit asked anxiously.

She flung her arms around his copper chassis and squeezed as tightly as she could.

‘I was never upset with you, Rabbit,’ she said. ‘I never will be.’

‘Try saying that when he’s imitating you on stage,’ The Spine said grumpily.

‘I-I wouldn’t do that to Piston,’ Rabbit said indignantly. ‘She’s our secret. We’ve got to keep her safe.’

Piston was touched, even if it wasn't strictly speaking true that none of the public knew where she was.

Annie was not, or if she was, she was concealing it well.

‘I’m still waiting for an explanation as to where you’ve been for the last fifteen hours, Spine.’

Piston decided it was time to intervene.

‘He was sitting up with me. I was… sort of ill,’ she said from the floor.

‘Ill in what way?’ Peter VI had been watching the proceedings with ill-disguised amusement, but now his face grew sombre and Rabbit and The Jon froze, looking surprised and worried.

‘We think it was her core fluctuating,’ The Spine explained. ‘Her power levels were pretty low.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing,’ Piston said, trying to speak around The Jon’s hat. ‘That was the problem.’ Peter looked confused. ‘It was like this,’ she said, finally managing to push her friends away. She sprawled inelegantly on the floor, gazed at the ceiling and slipped into a mode close to power-down. After a moment, Peter said

‘Piston?’

She ignored him deliberately, just to tease them all. Only when they were starting to look genuinely concerned, did she come back to full power. Annie told her off all over again for scaring them and then The Spine explained his theory to them in more detail.

‘If that’s true,’ Peter mused. ‘You’ll probably just have days like this every now and then. The… the timing was just bad luck. I’ll see what I can do, but I might have to see you in that state to get the data I need.’

‘We can work around it, Piston, even if nothing can be done,’ Annie said. ‘Although personally, I’d be more worried about the other side of it.’

‘What do you mean, Annie?’ The Jon asked. Piston used his momentary distraction to filch his hat. He didn’t notice.

‘I mean that if Piston’s going to have days where she can’t do anything, she might also have days where she has far too much energy. It’s hard enough trying to make sure Rabbit doesn’t bring the house down around our ears, let alone having another hyperactive robot on our hands.’

‘Hey!’ Rabbit protested. ‘It’s been a whole week since I broke anything!’

‘What about the piano?’ The Jon asked.

‘Y-you weren’t supposed to mention that!’ Rabbit cried, looking guilty. ‘It was a secret!’

‘Oh, sorry… Hey, where did my hat go?’ The Jon scanned the room but forgot to look behind him. Not seeing his beloved topper, he dashed out into the hallway to begin searching for it.

‘H-how long do we leave it before we tell him?’ Rabbit asked.

‘Several days?’

‘You’re certainly in the mood for teasing people today, Piston,’ Annie said, shaking her head.

‘No. I just like the hat.’

‘Well, it’s in better condition than the rest of your clothes. I think it’s about time we went shopping, don’t you?’

‘What’s wrong with my clothes?’

They all looked at her. Piston followed their gazes and examined her top with its frayed edges and enormous moth-induced holes, the short black skirt which had blotchy patches where the damp had got into the denim and the scuffed, peeling trainers that Annie had lent her to keep the grit out of her foot mechanisms.

‘So? What’s wrong with them?’

 

In the end, only Annie and The Spine came with Piston on her shopping trip. Or, to put it more accurately, it was only The Spine and Piston who came on Annie’s shopping trip. They squashed into Annie’s battered old Beetle and held their collective breaths as she turned the key. When it became apparent that for once Peter hadn’t added any strange inventions to the contraption, they set off.

First port of call was a little place that Annie was particularly fond of. It was garage and café which meant it had food for her lunch and oil for the robots’ breakfast. As they sat at a table, Piston craning her neck to see the mechanics at work outside, Annie spoke quietly to The Spine.

‘Where did you find her?’

‘She was up in the attic.’ There was silence and then a thunk as Piston hit her head on the window. She rubbed it and carried on gawking.

‘ _How_ did you find her, Spine?’

‘I was up there anyway. She heard me.’

‘You came in and went straight up to the attic without telling us you were back? Last night didn’t go too well, I take it.’ There was sympathy in Annie’s voice now, rather than anger.

‘No. I worked it out with Daph, but then… I’m not sure.’

‘It’ll sort itself out, dear. Piston? You don’t want to lean over that far, love, not in that skirt.’

Piston dropped back into her chair and, with the wide-eyed wonder of fawn, started staring at the other patrons of Tiffany’s Auto-Caff.

 

 *****  This was true. Stan had become convinced that it was nothing short of a miracle that he had come away from Walter Manor unscathed. He had developed a phobia about opening letter boxes and now had to do his entire round wearing gardening gloves and a hard hat. It normally took several pints to get him to talk about the Manor, let alone go near it and the department head was trying to persuade him into taking early retirement for his own good.

 ****** And that was just Peter.


	12. The Old Curiosity Shop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have two apologies this time:  
> 1\. I almost forgot to post this and I would have done had I not been online anyway.  
> 2\. It's quite a short chapter. But it's not as short as Chapter 3, so I don't feel too badly about it.  
> You do, however, get to meet Harriet for the first time. I like writing her and she'll come up now and then, so I hope you guys get to like her too.  
> For once, I don't have anything else to say, so happy reading!

San Diego was like nothing Piston had experienced before. Her memories of London consisted of a couple of dingy houses, the rooftops of Westminster Palace and the vague, blurry view from the plane. Here there was noise and bustle and heat and traffic and more than anything else there were simply hundreds upon thousands of people. At first, it was overwhelming and the barking started just as they were crossing a busy road. Piston stopped dead in her tracks and The Spine had to carry her bodily over to the pavement to avoid the oncoming cars. Fortunately, the noise from the road meant that only the closest of passers-by actually heard her bark and by now the inhabitants of San Diego had grown used to the robots living in their midst, so there weren’t too many stares.

‘Sorry,’ Piston said, once they had got her calmed down.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ The Spine said. ‘Just don’t stop halfway across a junction, next time.’

 

As they shuffled along with the crowds, Annie began to explain to Piston how shops worked. The Spine introduced her to some ground rules for dealing with humans. These included not staring too much at people, not pointing at them and not using any of the words Peter liked to employ when a project went badly. Even with these basics, Piston felt swamped. How much staring was too much? Was it only people you couldn’t point at, or was it _everything?_ And why did these words exist if you weren’t allowed to use them? She didn’t have too much trouble with the first rule, if only because she was so busy staring at everything, that no one person caught her gaze long enough to incite offence. Pointing was a bit more difficult. After asking ‘What’s that?’ a dozen times while giving her companions almost no indication of what she was looking at, The Spine told her she could point at objects, but not people, as long she didn’t hit anyone when she did so. Which was another problem. Not used to being surrounded by crowds, Piston kept forgetting to look where she was going and it was The Spine’s timely intervention that saved more than one pedestrian from a frontal collision with a distracted, and very heavy, brass woman.

‘We’re here,’ Annie announced to general relief after the fifth time this happened. ‘I thought you might like this sort of thing.’

‘Alternative’ was probably the best way to describe the shop. It was a narrow, slightly dilapidated place with its mannequins dressed in a variety of styles, sometimes as part of the same outfit. There were long, flowing gypsy skirts in bright colours, black velvet concoctions covered in lace and a quantity of leather and brass that implied the owner had rather more than a passing fancy for steampunk.

Piston felt her photoreceptors glow even brighter as she tried to take it all in and that was just the window display.

‘Do you want to go in?’ Annie asked, smiling.

Piston nodded.

‘Well, go on then.’

She stretched out her hand and it trembled as it hovered in front of the finger plate. Trying to swallow her nerves, she gently pushed the door open. Or at least, she tried to and then found it was stuck when her nose almost cracked the glass. She pushed harder, the door suddenly gave and she fell into the shop, a bell overhead ringing out in admonishment. She scrambled up hastily and looked quickly around. But the shop seemed devoid of both customers and shopkeepers.

There was a spluttering noise behind her and she turned to find Annie with her back to her, apparently fascinated by the large poster opposite advertising a new brand of gel, the purpose of which completely mystified Piston, while her shoulders heaved as though she was operating a road drill.

The Spine, as if Piston hadn’t even touched the door, let alone fallen through it, said

‘Go on.’

She stepped further inside, her eyes illuminating the shop and giving everything a strange green tint. Although it was narrow, the shop went back an awfully long way and there a rickety staircase opposite the counter with a note tied to the banisters ‘Shoes This Way’. Several rooms had been knocked through to create the long space and each section had a theme. The first had racks of gypsy skirts with layers and flounces. There were leggings and flares and floaty, puffy trousers that were gathered in at the ankle. There were tops with beads and embroidery, some baggy, some clingy, some with pointed hoods and everything was available in just about every colour you could think of. Consequently, the space left to move in was tiny and Piston took extra care as she negotiated racks and rails.

For quite a long time, she just wandered, too overawed to really look at the clothes, to pick out anything in particular. The second room was just as full, but the main colour here was black. Black, deep purple and blood red, velvet, satin and brocade festooned the room, making it even darker and Piston’s eyes glowed brighter to compensate. She trailed her fingers, carefully, along a line of dresses and hummed slightly in glee at the changing textures.

The third room was the steampunk one. In a way, it had quite a lot in common with the previous room, but there was more brown leather and brass here.

‘Can I help you? Oh!’

Piston jumped in surprise at the voice. A woman was standing in the corner, a coat hanger dangling from one hand, a ruffled silk blouse from the other. The shop was clearly hers as she was dressed to match it in a voluminous green skirt, a black velvet top with bell sleeves and what looked like a disembowelled clock perched on top of her head.

The two regarded each other warily, the woman because she’d never met this robot before and Piston because this was the first time she found it necessary to speak to someone outside of her creators and the Walter family. At length she remembered what Annie had told her to say.

‘No… thank you… I’m, I’m just looking.’ Had she got it right?

The woman smiled and said

‘Okay. If you need anything, just shout.’

Did she mean literally? But The Spine always told Rabbit off for shouting inside the house, so probably not.

Feeling uncomfortably as if the woman was watching her, even though she had gone back to picking discarded clothes off of the floor, Piston surveyed the clothes in this room. They looked both normal and peculiar. Normal, because the other robots tended to wear similar clothes, but peculiar compared to what everyone else she had seen today was wearing. Apart from the shopkeeper who was now adjusting the dying clock in a small mirror that hung on the only bit of wall space left. The woman’s reflection saw Piston watching her and smiled. Piston turned hastily away and stared instead at a rack of striped coats decorated with braid.

‘See anything you like?’ It was The Spine, of course, checking to make sure that she was okay, she hadn’t got lost and she hadn’t had a run in with a maddened goose. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened to one of the Walter bots.

The woman looked up and grinned when she saw the tall, slim figure.

‘Hey, Spine. Haven’t seen you in a while. I guessed she was one of yours.’

Piston goggled. They knew each other?

The Spine saw her expression and chuckled.

‘Piston, this is Harriet Everly. Harriet, this is Piston, a new member of the family.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Piston,’ Harriet said, still smiling.

‘…It’s nice to meet you, too,’ Piston said very quietly.

‘No need to be shy. I don’t bite. Much.’ She laughed openly at the startled look on Piston’s face. ‘Don’t worry, I’m just kidding.’

‘So, have you seen anything?’ The Spine asked again.

‘Of course, I looked at everything.’

He opened his mouth to explain and then saw the impish smile that had curved its way across her face plates. His own smile broadened and for a moment, neither of them said a word, just looking at the other’s grin.

‘But did you see anything you liked in particular?’ Harriet inquired, breaking the silence.

Piston thought, tapping her fingers idly on a rail with a little ‘ch-ch-chink’. Had there been anything special? Now they mentioned it…

She turned to look at one corner of the room which was entirely devoted to corsets in gorgeous, jewel-bright colours: ruby, jet and emerald, sapphire, amethyst and topaz. Yes, one of those would be good, although she had no idea which colour or even which cut she preferred. And her brain brought up other images as well, a couple of skirts, a top, several pairs of trousers. Her eyes glowed brighter and her mind fizzed with possibilities, with combinations. _That_ outfit would require something else, it didn’t look quite right, but _this_ one was perfect… Something welled up inside her and came bubbling out her mouth. Even in the midst of her laughter, she heard herself shout

‘Rootless in the wind!’


	13. Vanity Fair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 13! Yay! Queue amazing clothes shops, a little foreshadowing and a smidgen of emotional turmoil for The Spine.  
> ...But I'm back at uni now and exams are coming up soon, so i won't have so much time to write until they're over.  
> Happily for you guys, that doesn't matter in the slightest, because I'm still nine or ten chapters ahead of myself.  
> So actually, I didn't really need to write this note at all, except as a prop to my woefully fragile ego.  
> And on that happy note, here's your chapter! Have a great week, folks!  
> P.S. You might like to know I used another food metaphor for Spine's voice. Because it's so delicious I can't resist.

‘Rootless in the wind!’

_It’s happening again! It’s bad enough what happens when I’m upset, why does it have to spoil it when I get excited?_ But Piston remembered what The Spine had said to her: humans had this problem too. Surely they found ways of coping with it. And whenever this happened, the barking or the shouting always stopped when… when she calmed down.

So instead of panicking and crying, she took a deep breath and quietly vented a small amount of steam from her joints. The Spine was saying something, but she ignored him and repeated the deep inhalation and then she did it a third time. And nothing came out of her mouth. There was a long, and very welcome, silence, undisturbed by meaningless phrases or strange barks. Tentatively, Piston opened her mouth, a chord of fear twanging through her body, and said

‘I’m all right, Spine,’ because he was looking extremely agitated.

Surprise blossomed across the silver angles of his face. He didn’t say anything at all, simply gaped at her for a moment.

And then Annie appeared.

‘I heard… is she all right, Spine?’ she asked urgently, assuming Piston had been rendered incapable of voluntary speech.

‘I’m fine,’ Piston said and this time it was her turn to laugh at the shock on Annie’s face. She stopped quite quickly, worried it would set her off again, but nothing happened. Tension she hadn’t even realised she was carrying began to leak away. ‘Really,’ she said when the other two continued to stare at her. ‘I’m okay. I think… I’ve got it under control.’

Annie’s look of surprise split into a huge grin and she flung herself on Piston, who resigned herself, yet again, to receiving a chassis-bending hug.

The Spine did nothing so exuberant, but his frame sagged slightly with relief and the light in his eyes danced.

‘Well done, Piston,’ he said and the warmth in his voice, like dark caramel, gave rise in her to a cautious feeling of pride. She had achieved something and she had never done that before. Even if it was a small victory, it was something.

Harriet was watching all of this with eyebrows that were ascending so rapidly they were in danger of becoming entangled in her eviscerated clock. Piston felt they owed her some explanation.

‘I have… what did you call it, Spine?’

‘Tourette syndrome. A sort of robot version.’

‘That’s it. I’ve… had a few problems with it.’ Saying it out loud felt odd: in one way it was no longer an unknown and that made it less frightening but admitting to a stranger that she had something wrong with her was awkward and embarrassing. How would Harriet react? But Piston’s fears proved unfounded, for the lady’s eyebrows descended again from their lofty heights, she made an ‘Ah’ noise and that was it.

‘Well, now that’s sorted out, have you found anything you like?’ It was just like Annie to get them back on track.

 

Harriet showed Piston a matchbox-sized room with a green velvet curtain to pull across it. There was a mirror and a row of hooks inside. Piston looked at Harriet, hoping for an explanation. Harriet looked at Piston.

‘Don’t you want to try them on?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘To see if they fit,’ Harriet said, as if this was obvious. To a human, it probably was.

‘Oh, right.’ Piston entered the cubicle and tugged the curtain across. Annie had mentioned trying clothes on earlier, but she had done so when a huge red vehicle had zoomed past. Not only had the wailing siren drowned out Annie’s words, but Piston had been far to absorbed in The Spine’s explanation of what fire engines were to pay attention when the older woman repeated herself.

The hooks, she surmised, must be for clothes, so she filled them with the hangers she had brought in. She had a moment of indecision trying to work out what to try on first, but it was after she had made up her mind that she ran into an unexpected difficulty: how did she get her current outfit off in order to put the new clothes on? She tried to pull one arm back through its sleeve and her flailing hand hit the wall with a loud, metallic thud.

‘Are you all right?’ Harriet asked.

‘Erm…’ Piston tried the other arm and then found she was imprisoned in her moth-eaten top with her elbows pinned to her sides, her hands sticking out of the neck. She twisted her shoulders and only succeeded in wriggling her top further down, rather than up. Steam hissed out of her neck joints as she struggled. Her movements knocked her slightly off balance and her stabilisers didn’t kick in in time. Her head bounced off the wall with a thunk. _Oh, no…_ She felt herself begin to slip backwards and without the use of her hands, she couldn’t do anything about it.

The curtain flew back and Harriet, made impatient by the sounds of someone apparently demolishing her changing room, was nearly crushed by the heavy brass robot. Showing surprising strength, she managed to push Piston back upright again. Sighing, she closed the curtain behind them and whipped the top-turned-straitjacket off over her head.

‘Thank you,’ Piston said to Harriet’s reflection.

‘Do you need help getting into anything?’

Piston swivelled her head to look at the clothes hanging up. At all the lacing, buttons and the sheer complexity of neck and armholes. They reached the decision at the same time.

Harriet passed Piston a blouse and showed her how to do the buttons up. She had to reach round her to do so, her chin craned up against Piston’s hard left shoulder. They then ran into a second problem. Piston’s skirt, as tatty as it was, was extremely tight and metal flesh wouldn’t submit to being squeezed and moved around the same way skin did. It was in fact so tight, that when Peter had replaced her legs he had very nearly cut the damn thing off in frustration, before remembering that would leave her with nothing, so he had had to content himself with sliding the skirt as far up her waist as it would go and cursing violently at regular intervals.

‘How on earth did you get this on?’ Harriet asked after ten whole minutes of fruitless effort. ‘How do you walk?’ Piston shrugged. She wasn’t sure how far Harriet’s acceptance of her would stretch and one of the first things the Walters had told her was to be very careful indeed who she spoke to about her past. As for walking, the bottom of the skirt was just loose enough. It was her hips that were the real problem.

‘Right, that’s it!’ Harriet cried, throwing up her arms in exasperation and hitting the wall herself. She left the changing room and came back a minute later with a pair of enormous scissors. Piston heard Annie and The Spine’s cries of alarm when they saw Harriet’s ferocious weapon.

‘I’ll knock a dollar off the bill,’ Harriet said. ‘Though the damn thing ain’t worth that.’ Once the curtain had fallen back into place, she set the scissors to work at the bottom of Piston’s skirt. Where it stretched across her hips, Harriet struggled to find enough slack to get the blade under the denim and Piston felt it scrape across her plates. It wasn’t painful, but it was an odd feeling. At last, the scissors snipped the last scrap of denim and the dirty, fraying and quite possibly mouldy ex-skirt flopped gracelessly to the ground to join the net that had been badly disguised as a top. Never again were the two of them destined to adorn Piston’s chassis. Instead, they were unceremoniously dropped into the rubbish at the end of the day and ended their lives slowly mouldering away in the city dump. It was absolutely the best place for them. *****

 

After Harriet’s crash course in how to dress, Piston could manage, more or less, by herself, although the corsets still gave her trouble. She selected her outfits, discarded some items and fell completely in love with others. As she twisted, looking at her reflection from different angles and trying to decide whether she liked this particular combination, she heard Annie’s voice.

‘Aren’t you gonna show us?’

‘Oh,’ Piston said. ‘I didn’t know I was supposed to.’ She turned around and pulled the curtain aside. There was a long silence, so long that Piston wondered if she’d done something wrong. She frowned and her white enamel teeth bit into her rubber lip. ‘Is… everything okay?’ she asked hesitantly.

The Spine opened his mouth, seemed to change his mind and closed it again.

Annie said

‘You’re so beautiful,’ in a hushed, almost reverent way.

‘What?’ Piston asked. ‘What does that mean?’

Annie’s face screwed itself up as she tried to work out what to say.

‘She means,’ Harriet said. ‘That men will throw themselves at your feet if you go out like that.’

‘Why would they do that?’ The mental picture that had been conjured up was rather alarming. Piston wasn’t sure she liked the outfit after all.

‘It’s a bit complicated, Piston. We’ll explain it to you later. But it’s a good thing,’ Annie said. ‘A very good thing.’

Piston cheered up, smiled and then retreated into the cubicle to try the next outfit on.

 

‘I can’t let you do that for me!’

‘I’ve done it now’

‘But you’ve done so much for me already. And it was so expensive!’

Annie sighed. Personally, she thought The Spine had made mistake in explaining how money worked to Piston just as Annie was paying for her new clothes.

‘Do you know how much it cost me and Peter to raise our son? How much damage Rabbit does to the house in an average year? If this is all I spend on you, I’d be very surprised, and I don’t begrudge a cent of it. You can, however, carry the bags.’ She passed six shopping bags to Piston who took them with a mutinous expression on her face that Annie knew was nothing to do with the bags. She was pleasantly surprised. Unless she was very much mistaken, Piston would need that sort of stubbornness and strength in her life and an awareness of and gratitude for what other people did for her would be of no small benefit to her as well.

She thanked Harriet profusely, as they had effectively commandeered the shop for over two hours, and led the two robots back outside and down the street.

‘Where are we going now?’ Piston asked.

‘You’ll need a few basics as well,’ Annie explained. ‘Sometimes it’s just too much effort to put a corset on every day.’

Annie bought her a few t-shirts and tank tops and once they’d finally found a place that did trousers that were big enough for Piston’s hips, small enough in the waist and long enough in the leg, a feat which probably merited some sort of award, they took almost every style they had. Piston showed a particular liking for black skinny jeans and as Annie knew that anything a robot wore regularly had a drastically reduced lifespan, she bought seven pairs when Piston wasn’t looking. She smuggled them into the bag containing the new slippers she had bought herself and got The Spine to carry it for her. He seemed very quiet, but then he always was and Piston was still finding enough new things to chatter about to more than make up for any gaps in the conversation.

 

When Piston stepped out of the changing room, it was as if The Spine was seeing her properly for the first time. On the rooftop, she had been only partially alive, an eerie, almost eldritch figure. Then she had been on Peter’s workbench, having bits of her replaced. At other times, she had had oil gushing down her face or The Spine had been too busy trying to explain everything to her that he hadn’t _looked_ at her. He did now and what he saw made something in his core stutter. A flounced green skirt flared out from her hips and she wore a peasant-style top of sky blue, which left her midriff bare. With her thick, wavy black hair and brass skin, she really did look like a gypsy, all exotic curves and bright colours. The Spine realised his mouth was open and shut it hastily.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he heard Annie breathe. And she was. Then he gave himself a mental shake. That was hardly fair to Daphne who, he reminded himself, was just as beautiful.

And he concentrated on Daphne for the rest of their time in the shop, as Piston finally finished trying on clothes, shoes and boots and then chose that very outfit to wear back to the Manor, her old clothes having been ruthlessly binned by Harriet. He trailed round behind the two women, not really paying attention to the conversation, or even where they were going. He was too busy with Daphne. He had started by thinking about the night they had met, about her cascade of honey-coloured hair and those fantastic two-tone eyes of hers that always shone so brightly. But Memory, as it so often did, played tricks on him and the recollections of happy meetings became arguments and different images swam through his mind. Daphne frowning when he vented steam. Daphne refusing to kiss him after he had drunk oil. The hurtful words of the drunk girl in the bar yesterday (was it really only yesterday?) and that horrible, awkward conversation afterwards where both of them had been thinking exactly the same thing and yet neither had had the courage to voice it.

 

And then to cap it all off, just as they neared the street where the Beetle was parked, The Spine saw her. Daphne. On the opposite side of the street but coming closer.  And if he could see her, she would have no trouble picking his tall, silver form out of the crowd. Which meant she might see Piston.

_Oh, hell,_ he thought. She wouldn’t like that. _She’ll want to know who she is. And then she’ll want to know why I didn’t tell her. And I can’t say it’s because she’d be jealous. That would just make things ten times worse._

He interrupted Annie’s explanation of how buses worked and told the other two to keep going without him. He darted back to the nearest crossing, practically sprinted over when the lights changed and hurried up to Daphne, determined both to patch things up between them (again) and to distract her so she wouldn’t see Piston.

As it was now early evening, Daph was dressed for work in a cream blouse, grey pencil skirt and black stilettos. She looked taken aback when The Spine appeared on front of her.

‘Hey, Daphne,’ he said, tipping his hat.

‘Oh. Hi, Spine. What do you want?’

He blinked.

‘I just thought I’d say hi. And… I wanted to ask if you’d have dinner with me tonight.’ He hadn’t intended that at all, but it seemed like a good idea.

Daphne bit her lip.

‘I’m busy tonight. I’ve got some friends coming over.’

‘Oh, okay. Are you free tomorrow?’ was what he said, but what he thought was: _but I’m your boyfriend. Didn’t I warrant an invite?_

‘How about we leave it the weekend? Go for Monday?’

‘Er, sure.’

‘Great. Let me know when and where.’ And she was gone, absorbed back into the crowd of commuters. The Spine looked after her in dismay. She had been annoyed with him before, but she had never cold-shouldered him. What had he done to upset her that much? Was it something he hadn’t done? Was this all a result of last night? Most importantly, how did he put it right? He _needed_ it to be all right. Perilously close to slipping back into last night’s maudlin self-pity, he recrossed the street and trudged after Annie and Piston, still dangling a shopping bag from one hand.

 

*****  Annie’s old trainers survived and were given a comfortable retirement as the shoes Annie pottered around the garden in. It remains to be seen how long it will be before they fall completely apart.


	14. The Body in the Library

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay, I know the Hall of Wires is not technically a library, but it's close enough!  
> This chapter is about twice as long as they normally are and I had great fun writing it because I love being mean to my characters.  
> See the title for any trigger warnings you may need.  
> Other than that, cue Rabbit maintenance, robot playtime and a whole lot of angst.

Piston knew exactly how much Annie had spent on her that day and had solemnly and silently declared to herself that she would repay every single cent of it, no matter how long it took her. Of course, she had no money of her own, which was why Annie had had to buy everything for her in the first place. But that, she decided, was irrelevant. If she couldn’t pay Annie back in money, she would do so in kind. Musings on how to do this occupied her all that evening and her dreams that night were full of half-seen figures waving skirts and chequebooks.

 

‘Wow, Piston!’ Rabbit cried when she met him in a corridor the next morning. ‘Y-you look great!’ She wasn’t wearing the ruffled outfit she had come home in yesterday, but a black peasant top with a ruby-red underbust corset, black skinny jeans with a very short, layered ebony skirt over the top and jet-coloured combat boots. She had noticed the other robots’ tendency to wear these colours and wanted to emulate them.

‘Thank you,’ she said, beaming at him.

Rabbit gave an even wider grin in return, so wide that there was a creaking as his aged copper face plates protested. Then he said

‘Peter’s lo-lo-looking for you. Said something about maintenance.’ Rabbit shuddered. ‘I’m glad it’s you he’s after.’

‘What’s wrong with maintenance?’ Piston asked.

‘He always wants to replace things,’ Rabbit said, leaning in and whispering to her conspiratorially. ‘But I don’t wanna be replaced.’

‘He replaced most of me,’ Piston said, frowning a bit. ‘Is… is that bad?’

‘It’s different for you. You were only made a little while ago and… they were nasty people. Pappy made me and I don’t wanna lose all that now he’s gone.’

Piston thought about that. She had been glad to sever her remaining ties to her makers. Rabbit was right, they had not been nice people. But if things had been different, if they had been like Rabbit’s ‘Pappy’, would she want to keep those ties? Maybe… Especially if she outlived them as Rabbit and his brother had done.

‘I think I understand,’ she said slowly.

Rabbit grinned again.

‘You do? Can you persuade Peter for me, then?’

She laughed.

‘Are you sure you want me to remind him that you might need maintenance?’

Rabbit twitched his mouth.

‘N-n-no. Don’t say anything. At all. Unless he brings it up first. And if you can’t persuade him, distract him.’ His voice deepened and he assumed a mock-serious expression. ‘This is your mission, should you choose to accept it. Hey, you’ll be like a spy or a secret agent!’

‘What’s that?’

‘Y-you need a codename… like Agent Brass. But that could be The Jon...’

‘How about Agent Ice Cream?’

‘Nah, that could be any of us. Agent… Agent… Agent Hug!’ he cried. ‘‘Cos you’re so good at them!’

‘In that case, you’re Agent Tickle! You’re far too good at that!’

‘Nope!’ Rabbit said smugly. ‘I’m the oldest brother, which means I’m the Boss. So I’m R.’

 

Eventually the newly christened R led Agent Hug to Peter’s workshop, where she was given her final briefing.

‘Remember, Agent Hug,’ Rabbit whispered. ‘Don’t mention me unless he does. Got it?’

‘Got it, R. I won’t let you down.’

‘Is that you, Rabbit?’ Peter called from inside the room. ‘Have you found Piston yet?’

Rabbit and Piston looked at each other in alarm and then Rabbit shoved her into the workshop.

‘Oh, hey Piston. Is Rabbit with you?’

‘No.’ Piston shook her head, her face plates displaying nothing more than curiosity as to why Peter wanted to see her. Peter raised his eyebrows.

‘Rabbit! Get your metal butt in here!’

The clanking sounds of R trying, and failing, to be stealthy ceased, but Rabbit did not appear in the doorway. Peter VI sighed.

‘I don’t want to do maintenance on you, Rabbit.’

‘You don’t?’ Rabbit’s face appeared with alarming rapidity.

‘No. I just want to show Piston what to do in case any of you break down. And it’s more likely to be you than anyone else.’

‘That sounds like maintenance to me. I don’t wanna do it.’ His copper chin jutted out stubbornly, telling the whole world, or at least the two members of it who were present, that maintenance was Not Happening.

Peter put his face in his hands, already overcome by the prospect of chasing and capturing Rabbit and the hours, and quite possibly days, it would take to do so.

But Piston came to his rescue.

‘But, what if you do break down?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I won’t know what to do. And you could be in pain. And the others might not be there. I’d just be sitting around, helpless, knowing that a member of my family is hurt. I don’t want that. I want to be able to help you if I ever need to.’

For just a second, Rabbit’s whole countenance changed. His head dropped, his chin lost that stubborn tilt and his eyes dimmed. Then, without so much as a word more of complaint, he came right into the room, leaned against one of the benches and stood there waiting, though he looked far from happy about it.

‘My God,’ Peter said, looking rather as though Rabbit had just transformed into a fish before his very eyes (although in this house nothing was impossible). ‘I don’t believe it.’ He rushed to the window and peered up at the sky. ‘Nope, can’t seeing any flying pigs. It’s an expression,’ he added for Piston’s sake. ‘Can I have you around every time I need to do work on Rabbit?’

 

Peter showed her how to use a few basic tools, how to clean her parts, how to repair any number of minor faults she might develop and told her what to do if she thought her core was doing something unusual.

‘I’m sorry to bring all this up,’ he said. ‘But I just don’t know that much about green matter. I doubt anything will go wrong, but we’ll need an early warning if it does, all right?’

Piston nodded, though it all made her feel very uneasy. She wished, not for the first time, that her core had been made of blue matter. Then it would be more stable and she wouldn’t have to run the risk that her own heart might kill her and everyone around her.

Once Piston had put her corset back on, Peter turned to Rabbit, who was, amazingly, still there. The determined look was back, the one that Peter and The Spine in particular had learned to dread.

‘Rabbit, you said you’d do this.'

‘N-n-n-n-n-no I didn’t. I n-never said a word. I’ll let you do it, just don’t change anything.’

‘We won’t, Rabbit.’

‘P-promise?’

‘I promise,’ Peter sighed. ‘And so does Piston, now come on.’

Over a stream of muttered complaints, Peter took Piston through the procedures to follow for the most common of Rabbit’s malfunctions. Most of these were fairly similar to what he had already shown her for herself, but Rabbit made things more complicated by refusing to be upgraded. Peter talked about a variety of symptoms and what their most likely causes were and compared that to how The Spine and The Jon worked and where they were most likely to go wrong. Piston drank it all in, facts slotting neatly into her brain where they could be accessed again in an instant, should the need arise. The variations between the four robots were noted, as well as the similarities.

‘Anything more complicated than that you’ll need help with,’ Peter finished. ‘So if you’re unsure, ask one of the bots, or ask me, all right?’

‘Yes!’ Piston declared. She realised that, green matter core aside, she liked knowing more about how she worked. It gave her a sense of independence to know that if something went wrong, she had a chance of fixing it herself.

‘Good. As long as you keep up with basic maintenance, you shouldn’t need any repairs for ages, so remember to do it.’ He flashed a stern look at Rabbit, who pulled a face and then blew a loud raspberry.

‘Peter?’ Piston said, remembering something she had noticed the day before.

‘Yeah?’

‘Your mother has things hanging from her ears.’

‘They’re called earrings.’

‘Can I have some?’

‘I don’t see why not. You’d need holes in your- oh, that’s why you asked me, isn’t it? Okay.’

It would have been much too tricky to pierce Piston’s ears while they were still attached, so Peter unscrewed them. It didn’t hurt, but it was very odd. She couldn’t hear quite as well without them, although her audio receptors were still working.

‘You can’t tell you don’t have ears,’ Rabbit said, staring at where her ebony locks covered the holes. He came and stood beside her and they watched Peter make a mark on each earlobe. It was on odd feeling, watching someone drill through your own ears which were held in a vice on a bench in front of you.

‘They’re very small holes,’ Peter said as he screwed her ears back on. ‘That’s so it’s hard for the earrings to fall out.’

‘Ow!’

‘Sorry, is that too tight?’

‘Yes.’

‘That better?’

‘Rabbit,’ Piston said, once her ears had been restored and neither was too tight. ‘Where’s your hat?’

Rabbit jumped into the air as though he’d been electrocuted, clapping a hand to his black bandanaed, but hatless, head.

‘Where is it?’ he cried, his gaze swivelling from side to side. He dropped to the floor and checked underneath everything, then dashed out into the corridor, panic-stricken.

As his footsteps faded, Piston brought her hand round from behind her back and put Rabbit’s hat on. It was slightly big for her, but her newly-punctured ears stopped it from sliding down.

Peter gave a sigh of exasperation, which set Piston off laughing.

‘My hat!’ Rabbit had reappeared in the doorway, glaring at Piston. That only made her laugh even harder. Rabbit lunged for his hat and she dodged out the way. Peter, seeing his life flash before his eyes as the copper automaton fell in his direction, scrambled up onto the workbench with an athleticism born of pure survival instincts. He watched in dismay as the two robots careered around his workshop, knocking important, spindly machines over and bumping into all the furniture, Rabbit’s dire warnings of what he’d do once he got his hat back devolving into giggles just like Piston.

‘You guys all right?’ It was The Jon, looking anxious.

‘She’s… heehee… got my hat!’

The Jon rushed to help, determined to get revenge on Piston for the theft of his own hat and employed the dirty trick of tickling her to get her to let go. She was no longer wearing the hat, but was curled up around it in a ball, her sides quaking with breathless laughter as The Jon tickled and Rabbit tried to prise his beloved headgear from her grasp.

‘Rootless in the wind!’

They all froze, all except Piston, who leapt to her feet and ran to the door. She turned on her heel and they saw a wicked grin flick across her face. She waved the hat and darted out of sight.

‘Nooooooooo!’ Rabbit yelled as he and The Jon sprinted heavily after the metal trickster. ‘She’s getting awaaaaay!’

‘Bad Piston!’ The Jon shouted.

Peter sat and listened to the comparative silence that their departure had left. His ears were ringing from the noise and he surveyed the ruins of his workshop with an air of mingled annoyance and amusement. It would take him hours to tidy up, but on the other hand, at least Piston didn’t seem so self-conscious about her tics.

 

The letters HOW were written above the door, one of the only doors, in fact, in the house. In retrospect, going through the door probably wasn’t the most sensible thing to do, but Piston was too busy giggling to think. She was close to genuinely losing control this time, so she wanted somewhere she could calm down for just a few minutes before she, reluctantly, handed Rabbit’s hat over. But, as always, life didn’t work out how she planned. She pushed the white, wooden door open and slipped through. The space beyond was warm and dimly lit in red and there was a shape in the middle of the room.

 

The scream ripped through the entire mansion, sending humans and robots into a panic. It was not a high-pitched shriek, but a full-blooded yell of absolute terror and it was followed almost immediately by a series of harsh, fox-like barks.

‘Piston!’ Rabbit and The Jon broke back into a run, following the sounds into… the Hall of Wires. They rushed inside and found an almost hysterical Piston standing, swaying, over The Spine’s body. Or rather, over part of his body. Their brother had slipped his vertebrae free of his chassis and was somewhere above their heads in the rat’s nest of wires. They could hear Piston’s mind voice, sobbing.

_What…what…what happened?_ she wailed. _He’s… he’s… he’s…_

A horrible thought struck Rabbit.

‘D-d-d-didn’t anyone mention that The Spine can be, well, just a spine?’

Piston turned fiery emerald eyes on him and he leaned back, ever so slightly.

_He can what?_

‘It’s all right, Piston. I’m still alive.’ The shiny, sinuous form was descending from the wires. He hung level with her head and she stared at him with mingled horror and disbelief. For a moment, Rabbit thought she might faint. She was still barking and oil tracks were once more glistening on her brass face plates. For a long time, she just stood there, without saying a word, not even over the Wi-Fi.

‘Rabbit, Jon, can you give us a moment?’ He phrased it as a question, but his tone brooked no arguments.

Rabbit scooped up his hat, where it lay forgotten on the floor and he and The Jon shuffled out, casting glances back over their shoulders at the petrified automaton.

‘What’s going on?’ They nearly collided with Annie outside the door. ‘Is everything all right? Was that Piston screaming?’

Rabbit closed the door firmly behind them and began to explain. He had to start all over again when both Peters turned up.

 

The Spine writhed his way over to his chassis and slipped himself back inside. There was a click and a hiss of hydraulics as the catches locked into place, dimly audible over Piston’s barks. He wriggled his fingers and toes to make sure nothing had seized up and then dredged up the courage to look back at Piston. If it hadn’t been for the sounds emanating from her twitching, gaping mouth, she might as well have been a statue, though no one would have sculpted a face set with such horror. He took a step towards her and was relieved when she didn’t back away. Or was that worse? Maybe she couldn’t move at all. He could hear her breathing very fast and the barks seemed to be getting louder.

_She’s in shock,_ he realised. _Well, of course she is, she’s just found what she thought was my headless corpse. And there could be delayed shock from Westminster. Why weren’t we looking for this? We’ve seen it enough times! Hell, we’ve_ been _through it!_

‘Piston, look at me. It’s all right, do you hear?’ He spoke softly and slowly, knowing that would calm her down quicker than just telling her to. ‘ _I’m_ all right. I’m not going anywhere. Just breathe as deeply as you can, like this.’ He pulled in a huge, slow breath, his bellows expanding his chest plates and then let it out again just as slowly.

Piston’s breathing came as rapidly as before. He wasn’t certain she could even hear him.

_Piston, look at me._

At the sound of his mind-voice, she blinked. Her eyes lost a little of their glassiness and she looked _at_ him now instead of _through_ him. It reminded him uncomfortably of her behaviour on the rooftop.

_That’s great. It’s all right._ I’m _all right. See? I’m safe and so are you. Now breathe deeply…_

He wasn’t sure how long it took him to calm Piston down. The barking didn’t subside, which worried him, but he kept talking to her and her breathing slowed. He got her to roll her shoulders to help her body begin to relax and he kept eye contact with her. Most of all, he kept talking, saying the same things over and over in a calm, steady voice that belied the anxiety he felt for her. Once she managed to focus on him properly, he switched back to talking out loud.

‘LOLZ. WOTS HAPNING?’

‘Now isn’t the time, QWERTY,’ The Spine said, still in that same placid tone, though he was wondering what the operating system had been doing all this time. It was probably best not to ask. He didn’t want to know the answer. ‘Go and check on the rest of the family for me.’

Piston’s eyes followed the moving screen and her breath juddered again. Inwardly, The Spine cursed, but he continued speaking as though there had been no interruption.

‘That’s just QWERTY. He’s harmless.’ That was a complete lie, but she didn’t need to know the truth right now. ‘You’re doing well. Come on, breathe.’

 

At some point, her joints began to unlock and she started to tremble violently. Knowing this was a good sign, The Spine didn’t try to stop it. It was better to let her get rid of all the excess energy in her system. That was one thing that had been bothering him, because of that unpredictable power core of hers. But when the shaking started, she lost her balance and began to fall. Automatically, he grabbed her arm to save her and she went rigid all over again, which nearly pulled him over as well. Patiently, he began all over again, until she relaxed just enough for him to pull her down to the floor, where she could sit with her back to the wall while the tremors started up again.

‘That’s good, Piston, real good. Let yourself go limp if you can.’ He relaxed his own body as much as he could and still keep upright. Her hands, which all along had been held stiffly up to her chest dropped a little and then a little more. The shivering redoubled. ‘It’s all right. I’ve got you, you’re not gonna fall.’ He still had a hand on her arm, guessing that touch would help to reassure her that he was indeed still alive. Then steam began to seep from every one of her joints, slowly at first, but it soon became a series of blasts rather like those from an active volcano. The Spine relaxed even more at this, because Piston had been issuing almost no steam at all and her pressure levels must have been reaching danger points. Through the localised fog, he heard, in between barks, two soft clanks as her hands finally slid to the floor. Then he felt her weight against him as her body, still trembling, slipped sideways. He shifted both their positions so that he could support her more easily and continued to talk to her.

 

At last, at long last, he heard a small voice saying

_Spine?_

He heaved an enormous sigh of relief.

_You’re… you’re all right?_ There was a desperate edge to her sending that he quickly moved to assuage.

‘I’m absolutely fine, see?’

She jerked her head to look him up and down, even though she had been staring at him this whole time.

_I thought you were dead!_ A single tear, gleaming redly in the dim light, inched its way out of her eye and down her already smeared cheeks.

He nodded.

‘I’m sorry, Piston. We should’ve told you I can separate out like that. It’s just… there’s so much you don’t know, we overlook things. But it’s normal, for me at least. It doesn’t hurt me. It’s just the way I am.’ Why was it so important for her to understand that? ...Maybe because it wasn’t just about reassuring her. Something inside him desperately wanted her to accept this ability of his.

Fortunately, she did.

_How does it work?_ she asked.

‘I’ll tell you, but not now. We need to make sure you’re okay first. You’re in shock, so your mind’s got stuck in a loop and your body along with it. It should sort itself out, we just need to give it time, all right?’

She nodded again, more smoothly this time.

‘Okay, just keep on taking deep breaths. Concentrate on it.’ Robots didn’t need the extra oxygen, but The Spine knew the regular motion was still calming and it helped to regulate other systems too. How often had he sat up with The Jon like this? And it had been Rabbit not a few times, too. ‘We’re going to stay here as long as you need, Piston. And I’m not gonna go anywhere.’

 

His comforting words broke something inside her and she slumped against him, now sobbing openly, until she wasn’t even sure what she was crying about. It might have been the leftover fear from seeing him apparently dead, it might have been relief that he wasn’t or perhaps it was a reaction to everything that had happened leading up to her collapse on the rooftop. Maybe it was a combination of all three. Whatever the reason, there was an odd kind of release in it, as though the oil coursing down her face was washing something out of all her systems.

At length, she had to stop crying because her oil reserves were getting low and she ended up producing a dry rasp. There was one small mercy in that the hideous barking had stopped at some point.

‘Hold on,’ The Spine said. He gently propped her up against the wall, as she was now too exhausted to move. He stood up and spoke to the room. ‘QWERTY, where did I put the oil?’

The screen came wooshing down from the ceiling, with its curious, bright green face and a claw descended holding a can. The Spine took it and thanked the interface.

‘WHOS THAT, SPINE?’

‘It’s Piston, you’ve seen her around. Piston, this is QWERTY. I’ll introduce you two properly at some point.’

QWERTY peered over The Spine’s shoulder as he passed Piston the oil can and she drank from it gratefully, too tired to be unnerved by QWERTY’s insistent stare.

_Spine, are you all right?_  She was too exhausted to speak out loud, as well.

‘I told you, it doesn’t hurt me to-’

_That’s not what I meant. Have you been crying too?_

His hand sprang to his face and felt the dried streak of oil there.

‘It’s nothing. I poked myself in the eye. I think we’ll get you back to your room now. That way you can power down.’

She knew he was lying about the tear track, but didn’t want to press it any further, especially not when he refused to let her walk and scooped her up effortlessly to carry her to her room.

_I’m sorry, Spine,_ she sent, guilt now flooding her system. _All I do is cry and cause trouble for everyone._

He heaved a sigh.

‘Piston, you aren’t causing trouble. And you have a right to cry. You have a lot to deal with. And we’ve all been there, Rabbit, The Jon and me. We’ve been to war and more than once. We know better than anyone how long it takes to deal with… stuff. So don’t worry about. Take as long as you need and cry as much as you like.’

 

Daphne was sitting curled up in the sofa in her pyjamas, eating ice cream from straight from the tub and feeling faintly guilty about it. She was comfort-eating and she didn’t have any reason to. Or was she just eating, and watching crummy soap operas, to avoid feeling guilty about The Spine? Because she hadn’t had plans last night, she just hadn’t wanted to tell him that she didn’t want to see him. That date had been so awkward. It hadn’t been the first time people had made remarks about her dating a robot, but it felt different this time, nastier.

The phone rang and she reluctantly put down her spoon and went to answer it. It was her best friend, Audrey.

‘Hey Daph, how you doing? Listen, are you busy on Monday?’

‘Er… kinda.’

‘Well, whatever it is, cancel it. We’re having a girl’s night out, you, me, the whole gang. We’re gonna try that new Italian that just opened. You in?’

‘I’m supposed to be having dinner with The Spine.’

There was a pause filled with faint static.

‘…Actually, that’s one of the things we need to talk to you about, honey. Put him off for a day.’

‘I already did.’

‘Well, do it again. We ain’t got together in months. Right, gotta go. I’ll pick you up at seven, right? Love you.’

So now even her friends were having doubts about her relationship. And somewhere, Daphne was starting to wonder if they were right.


	15. Dear Jon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered posting this without any notes, but I found I couldn't. But I'll keep it brief.  
> Hope you like a chapter full of The Jon being The Jon. Also Piston finds out why Rabbit doesn't like Daphne.  
> I tried hard with the feels on this one, so I hope it pays off and I'm sorry if it doesn't.  
> Finally, I hope you're all having a good weekend. I know I am!

They made sure to watch Piston carefully for some time, just in case she had a relapse. She knew what they were doing and felt grateful that they understood what was happening, because she didn’t. The Spine had said it would take time for her to recover, but in a way, she hadn’t believed him. After all, she had been quite happy a couple of days ago. Or had that only been because she hadn’t really confronted anything that had happened, too bewildered by the sudden, dramatic turn her life had taken than simply try to keep afloat?

There were more tears over the next few days, sudden bouts of them at completely random and unpredictable moments, such as when Annie wished her a good morning, or when she walked down a corridor and found that at the end she was weeping uncontrollably. Piston also found that she would start trembling for no apparent reason and once she broke out onto nervous, almost hysterical giggles when Rabbit asked her if she wanted to wear his hat.

 

That had been the third day since she had entered the Hall of Wires and now it was Thursday: two more days had passed and she was feeling slightly calmer. Almost as soon as she had powered up that morning, The Jon had appeared and begun to drag her off to some unknown location. She had firmly stopped him and gone back to change out of her pyjamas, while he hovered impatiently in the hallway. Then he took her hand again and towed her outside.

The sun had only just risen and Piston shielded her eyes from it. Spread out on the rough, straggly grass, there was a tartan blanket and what looked suspiciously like a picnic hamper. The Jon gave her a sidelong look and said

‘Race you!’ sprinting off in front.

Piston followed in hot pursuit and they made a dead heat of it, hitting the blanket with identical thuds.

The Jon flipped over onto his back, put his hands behind his head and stared upwards. Piston followed his example. After a long silence, she asked

‘What are we looking for?’

‘Pictures in the clouds.’

Piston stared up into the blue, resolutely cloud-free sky.

‘Can you see anything?’

The Jon giggled.

‘Course not, there’s no clouds yet. Silly Piston!’

‘So how are we going to see pictures if there aren’t any clouds?’

‘Wait and see.’

So she did. Really, she thought, it was quite nice. Birds were singing in the only tree for several miles, which was attempting to toss its leaves in the breeze but was making a rather pathetic job of it all by itself. An aeroplane climbed into the sky, leaving behind a vapour trail that gradually expanded until it dissolved. The aforementioned breeze played gently across her face and she shut her optics, enjoying the coolness interspersed with warmth from the climbing sun. She amended her previous thought. This wasn’t merely _nice_ , this was _wonderful_. She had only once been outside in her short and patchy life before arriving at Walter Manor and now was her first chance to enjoy it. Too much had been happening over the last… was it really only two and a half weeks since she had first woken up here? It seemed much longer than that.

She let herself drift, feeling much, much calmer than she had, well, ever. The birdsong, the rustling leaves, the muffled sound of traffic from the city somewhere below, it all lulled her, not to sleep, but into some comfortable place where time didn’t matter and there were no lurking horrors concealed in the corners of her mind.

‘Hey, Piston?’

‘…Mmm?’ she said dreamily.

‘Does… does The Spine bother you?’

‘What do you mean? Why would he bother me?’

‘Cos of his, you know, snake thing… Some people don’t like that.’ There was concern in The Jon’s voice, worry for his stoical brother.

Piston considered his question. In all this bright sunshine, away from the gloom of the Hall of Wires, it was much easier to think about what had happened. The image of his headless chassis filled her mind once again, but now she knew that it was just how The Spine was made, it didn’t hold the same terror for her. In her mind’s eye, she watched the serpentine form descend from the ceiling. It was graceful, elegant, even beautiful.

‘No,’ she said finally. ‘It doesn’t bother me at all. It’s… amazing that he can do that.’

The Jon’s curly head appeared in her field of vision, looking excited.

‘You mean that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good!’ The Jon lay back down again, puffing out tiny clouds of steam in pleasure. ‘He was worried about that, but now he doesn’t have to be.’

‘He was worried what I thought of him?’ Piston was astonished. The Spine was always so calm, so confident that it hadn’t occurred to her that he might be concerned what others thought of him. He never showed it. Or did he? She remembered the night up in the attic, when he had told her about his date. He had spoken of it as though it was Daphne who had been rattled by the unkind remarks, but maybe that wasn’t the case.

‘Yeah,’ The Jon said, confirming her thoughts. ‘He-’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He cares a lot more than people think, even Annie and Peter. And a lot of people don’t like us, cos we aren’t human. That’s why Rabbit doesn’t like Daphne.’

Now it was Piston’s turn to give The Jon a quizzical look, propping herself up on her elbow.

‘But… Daphne and The Spine, aren’t they… in love? They’re… dating, is that the word?’

The Jon muttered something without looking at her.

Piston stared at him.

‘Did you say she doesn’t love him?’

‘Ssshh!’ The Jon hissed, as though The Spine was right behind them. Piston did a quick check to make sure they definitely were alone and dropped her voice too.

‘Why is she… going out… with him, then?’ She didn’t yet understand all this business of dating and girlfriends and love. She had been given a very rough explanation, but it wasn’t adequate to help her understand this situation.

The Jon shrugged.

‘Well, why doesn’t Rabbit like her?’

‘I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to keep it absolutely secret, okay?’

‘I won’t breathe a word of it to anyone.’

‘It was quite soon after The Spine met her, I think, I’m not that sure. But she came for dinner, to meet everyone. She said everything here was weird.’

‘Really?’

‘I know. Anyway, we were all on our bestest, bestest behaviour, because The Spine said if we showed him up, he’d throw us under a steam roller and sell what was left to the scrap metal yard… Of course, you know what Rabbit is like when someone tells him what to do.’

Piston did indeed know. Only yesterday, the copper automaton had thrown a huge tantrum because Peter V had told him to stop putting people’s shoes into the bathtub. His motivations for doing so were still unclear.

‘Weeell, he didn’t do anything that bad.’

Piston didn’t have to say anything. She merely looked at him.

‘All right, maybe it was a bit bad.’

‘What did he do?’

‘She had this really pretty necklace on. It was all shiny and glittery.’

Piston had a feeling she knew where this was going. Rabbit and The Jon seemed to be part magpie.

‘And the catch came undone. Rabbit picked it up. He was only having a look at it, but she acted like he’d stolen it. She shouted at him to give it back.’

‘Which only made him hold onto it even more?’ Piston guessed.

‘Yeah… And then she told The Spine that Rabbit had it and wouldn’t give it back and The Spine got really angry.’

‘Angry?’ That genuinely shocked Piston. The Spine didn’t get angry. Frustrated, yes, irritated, definitely, particularly when his brothers were involved, but Piston had never seen him angry. He never threw tantrums or sulked like Rabbit did. But then, he had been hiding in the Hall of Wires for a whole day before she found him and he hadn’t been around much this entire week. Maybe the HOW was where he went to sulk, where no one could see him do it.

The Jon shivered.

‘Yeah. The Spine’s never been that angry before. Not with us, anyway. It was scary.’ He said that in a very small voice indeed, not wanting to admit that his brother had frightened him. Piston patted him sympathetically on the arm.

‘He shouted at Rabbit, too, and told him to give the necklace back and to get lost, so Rabbit dropped it and went off. We didn’t see him for three days. And then he wouldn’t come back until The Spine apologised. But ever since then he hates Daphne, ‘cos she made The Spine act…not like The Spine. It’s ‘cos she doesn’t like robots. That’s why she didn’t want Rabbit touching her stuff.’

‘Do you like Daphne, Jon?’

The Jon looked around and lowered his voice even further, so that she had to strain to hear him.

‘No,’ he confided. ‘She makes The Spine unhappy. And he’s my brother. I don’t want him to be unhappy. Look!’ He suddenly pointed upwards and Piston saw the gathering clouds. ‘That one looks like a pegicorn. There’s the wings and that’s the horn!’

‘No, that’s an eagle playing a guitar!’ Piston insisted, accepting the change of topic. If The Jon didn’t want to say anymore, she wasn’t going to push him.

‘And that’s a dragon.’

‘Where?’

‘Those two sticky-up bits are the wings and that long bit is the fire coming out its mouth.’

‘Well, that one looks like Rabbit holding a shoe.’

‘How?’

‘Those two bits of blue sky are his cheek vents and that dark bit of cloud there is the shoe, see?’

The Jon beamed at her.

‘You’re really good at this!’

 

The day passed in a series of cloud-spotting sessions, with breaks when said clouds moved off to somewhere more conducive to rain than San Diego. The pictures got more and more intricate, until The Jon was swearing blind that if Piston tilted her head to one side and half-closed one eye, the white fluffy sculptures looked exactly like a cowboy flying a vulture after defeating a huge snake. Piston took his word for it. She wasn’t sure what a cowboy did, had never seen a vulture and had no clue who ‘Rex Marksley’ was. However, she could see Annie knitting a cow while a cat played with her wool. She pointed it out to The Jon, who laughed gleefully.

When the sun began to set, Piston thought they would go back inside, but they didn’t. With the last rays of crimson sunlight turning their brass face plates to rose gold, The Jon asked

‘How do you feel?’

‘Hmm… drowsy.’

‘No, I meant, after Saturday.’

‘Oh. Not too bad. Today’s really helped. Thank you, Jon.’

‘I was worried, ‘cos you don’t have anything to do.’

‘What do you mean?’ Piston realised she asked that question an awful lot.

‘Well, we can play music or write songs and me and Rabbit paint and The Spine… well you’ve seen what he does. But you haven’t got anything.’

Piston recalled what The Spine had said to her in the Hall of Wires: _We’ve all been there… We’ve been to war and more than once. We know better than anyone how long it takes_. All of a sudden, she found she was absolutely furious. Who had _dared_ hurt these kind, gentle, wonderful people who had been so good to someone who had nearly killed them and yet asked for nothing in return?

‘P-Piston, are you all right? Your eyes look… odd.’

She forced herself to calm down, releasing the build-up of steam.

‘Sorry, Jon. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just… you shouldn’t have had to go through that.’

He shrugged, understanding what she meant.

‘We can’t change it though. And we did save lives. Anyway,’ he said, avoiding any further discussion of war. ‘I got you a present.’

‘Jon, you didn’t have to get me anything. I owe you all so much already.’ _Not least my life,_ she added to herself.

‘You don’t owe people anything if they give you presents,’ The Jon said firmly. He opened the hamper.

At first, it just seemed to hold water and sandwiches, which The Jon pulled out happily. Piston didn’t take a sandwich; Peter’s dire warnings about what would happen to her mechanisms if she repeatedly gunged them up with food were still ringing in her ears. Then the brass robot plunged his hand back into the hamper and Piston saw there was a sort of black case in the bottom that she hadn’t seen in the dim light. He lifted it carefully out and presented it to her. It wasn’t quite rectangular and it wasn’t all that big, but it had a certain weight to it.

‘Go on, open it!’ The Jon said eagerly, his eyes shining bright blue.

Piston flicked the catches and opened the box. Nestled in red velvet was… an object she didn’t recognise. But it reminded her a little of the guitars that The Spine and The Jon played, though it wasn’t quite the same shape. It was a lot smaller, made of sleek, black wood and there were only four strings. Beside it there was a long stick which also seemed to have strings attached.

‘You’ll be really good with it,’ The Jon said. ‘I know you will.’

‘What is it?’ Piston asked. Again.

‘It’s a violin. That way, you can play an instrument like the rest of us.’

‘But-but I don’t know how!’

‘You’ll learn… Do you like it?’ The Jon peered at her from under his feathered hat.

‘I love it!’ She threw her arms around him impulsively and he made a crooning noise.

‘Piston?’

‘Yes?’

‘Please don’t steal my hat.’

‘Oh. All right.’ She dropped it back on his head. ‘Thank you so much, Jon. Erm… how do I play the violin?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never played one before.’

They stayed on the grass, staring up at the sky as the sun disappeared and the stars came out. As The Jon pointed out the constellations to her, Piston ran her fingers gently over the polished wood of her violin. It felt right, somehow, and she couldn’t wait to play it. Although, she was pretty sure there weren’t any other violins in the house and if that was true, then who was going to teach her to play it? Would she have to teach herself? The thought both alarmed and excited her, as did the realisation that she would be able to do something none of the others could.

The stars drifted above them through the endless night of space, their faint light mingling with the rays of the moon and bathing the whole scene, as though it was a sculpture cast in silver.

 

He could hear QWERTY’s screen moving around below him, but he had no interest in what the operating system was doing. Here in his nest of tangled wires, he could finally drop the mask he put on for everyone else because he didn’t want to worry them. The dejection he had felt after Daphne’s brusque treatment of him on Friday had devolved into abject melancholy since Monday. He had booked a table at a posh Italian place, because that was Daph’s favourite, and then called her to let her know. She had told him that her friends had insisted on dragging her out that night and they’d have to rearrange their date again. The silence from his end of the phone had made her say

‘Spine? Are you still there?’

‘Yeah. Okay. When do you want to do it, then?’

‘Well, I’ve got a pretty busy week coming up and my boss asked me to put a load of stuff together for this big meeting, so I haven’t got that much time. How about next Monday?’

‘Sure. I’ll rearrange it.’

‘Yeah. Bye!’

‘Bye.’ But she had already rung off.

The Spine settled his chin on a thick loop of wire and sighed. She must have noticed. That was why she was avoiding him.

 _No,_ he told himself. _She can’t have. No one else has._ His eyes rested on the object that only he knew was up here. It was all he had left of _her_. _I thought I’d finally got it right with Daphne. I thought I’d got over_ her _._ _I should have, it’s been years. But I still can’t tell Daph I love her. I do… don’t I? It doesn’t feel like it did with… but she’s a different person! Of course it wouldn’t!_ He heaved another great sigh, tiny fans in his vertebrae sending air through his system. Why did he always have this problem with women? Maybe, though he shrank from the thought, maybe _she_ was the only one he would ever love. Was he doomed, cursed to spend the rest of his almost eternal existence alone? He slipped forward through the wires and curled himself around the katana that lay cocooned in them. _Why did you leave me? Why did you have to go?_ The cry echoed out across empty space, but there was no longer anyone to answer it, no one to fill that gulf of hurt that not even a brother’s love could heal and through the ringing silence came a steady drip-drip, as droplets of oil pattered to the floor twenty feet below.


	16. Watership Down

_Oh, Spi-ine,_ Rabbit called. _Come out, come out, wherever you are!_ There was no answer, but Rabbit had been expecting that. His younger brother hadn’t been around that much for the last week and Rabbit knew perfectly well that The Spine was brooding. That would have been okay, they were all entitled to brood every now and then, but The Spine didn’t normally do that and neither did he disappear for days at a time. Not unless he was _really_ upset about something. Rabbit frowned as he loped down the corridors of Walter Manor. He had a strong suspicion he knew what The Spine was upset about and his white enamel teeth ground together as he thought of Daphne. Why couldn’t his brother see how bad she was for him, how much she disliked robots? She’d even been snooty with The Jon and who could resist his childish and charming ways?

 _He should have dumped her when Piston went missing. No, he should never have gone out with her in the first place._ Perhaps that wasn’t very kind, but Rabbit didn’t feel like being kind to someone who habitually hurt his brother. The Spine might not be able to see it, but he could. Daphne made comments and pursed her lips and did this little sniff whenever she thought his brother was being too robotic, with the result that The Spine couldn’t drink oil around her, which he needed to survive, and couldn’t vent steam in the way he was supposed to. Which added up to either a grumpy Spine or a melancholy one and that was without the effects this had on his mind.

In short, Rabbit was very worried and his self-imposed mission was to distract The Spine and cheer him up. Maybe he should be Agent Tickle today, instead of R…

 

Agent Tickle made his way stealthily through the mansion of the evil super-villain, avoiding all of the carefully planted traps with supernatural ease. Even knowing that his nemesis was an automaton, the wicked doctor had underestimated him again and that would be his undoing. Or so the secret agent thought.

Just as he stole past an open doorway, a spanner came flying out and struck him squarely on the nose. The secret agent reeled backwards, stunned and powerless to resist the strongarm tactics of the dastardly henchman who followed the spanner.

‘God, Rabbit, are you all right? I’m sorry about that.’

‘Y-y-y-you’ll never get me to talk!’ Agent Tickle cried, recovering his senses and breaking away from the man’s grip. He would have to hurry now the alarm had been raised. Any second now, klaxons would begin sounding and a troop of heavily armed, totally identical bodyguards would be on his tail, determined to drag him to the villain’s dungeons and wring his secrets out of him.

 

Peter watched the disappearing robot in bemusement. Perhaps that spanner had knocked some circuits loose. Or possibly, and more likely, Rabbit was just being Rabbit.

 

There it was. He was one door away from the lair of the evil serpent-doctor. This was the crucial moment and yet it was the hardest challenge he had ever faced. He inched the door open very, very slowly and slipped inside, not making the slightest sound. Now all he had to do was avoid the cameras and-

‘K. GREETERINGS ROBUT. PLZ INPUT ID CODE. THNX.’

‘QWERTY!’

‘INCORRECT. ERROR.’

‘You’ve spoilt it now!’ Rabbit fumed. The game had been going so well. ‘Y-y-y-you know perfectly well who I am! I d-d-don’t need an ID code!’

‘ **…** ’

So much for being stealthy. But The Spine hadn’t come gliding down from his bird’s nest, even though Rabbit was sure he was in here. He had at least put his chassis away this time, instead of leaving it out for Piston to find and have a panic attack over. Come to think of it, The Spine must have been pretty distracted not to have done so last time. He was always so tidy.

‘Spine? Spine!’

There was a noise like a leaking gas pipe.

_I’m tired, Rabbit. Could you leave me alone for a bit? Please?_

‘Nuh-uh. Ain’t gonna happen.’ For Rabbit had seen the little puddles of dried-up oil that had accumulated on the floor and he folded his arms and lifted his chin.

There was another noise, as though someone not too far away had realised this was an argument he wasn’t going to win.

_What do you want, Rabbit?_

‘Rehearsals. E-everyone’s here.’

For a moment, nothing happened and then something silver flickered at the edge of his vision. A few moments later his brother was standing in front of him, whole and looking entirely normal.

‘Come on, then,’ The Spine said and for the first time in over a week, he left the Hall of Wires.

 

Having at last got The Spine out of the HOW, Rabbit was not about to let him go back to brooding again. So once the rehearsal was over and Piston had been introduced to the other members of the band, he set about trying to keep his brother distracted. It wasn’t hard. First, he threw a massive and only slightly engineered tantrum when The Spine tried to leave the room and complained bitterly, and every loudly, that he never even saw his brother any more. Subtlety was not Rabbit’s strong point. Having successfully used emotional blackmail to get The Spine to stay, Rabbit then demanded an arm-wrestling competition in lieu of a week of only half the normal amount of brotherly affection. The Spine’s face fell, but he agreed in order to alleviate the guilt Rabbit had stirred up.

Piston opened her mouth and before she could ask, Rabbit said

‘We’ll sh-show you.’ He cleared the coffee table with one sweep of his arm, ignoring the mess he made of Peter’s papers, and rested his elbow on it, fixing The Jon with an expectant gaze.

The Jon shuffled around, fiddling with his hat. Rabbit waited. And waited. And waited. He was very good at being patient if it suited him to be.

At last, The Jon sat down opposite him and they gripped hands. Three seconds later there was a smack as Rabbit pinned his brother’s hand to the table. The Jon extracted his hand and shook it. His thumb fell off.

Once they had retrieved the thumb from underneath the sofa, The Spine made Rabbit apologise to The Jon.

‘Sorry,’ Rabbit muttered, with bad grace.

His brother sniffed, trying not to cry, and Piston pulled him down to sit next to her. She began reattaching his thumb, alternately comforting him and telling him not to be such a baby.

Meanwhile, Rabbit twitched his eyebrows at The Spine and wiggled his fingers. The Spine lifted his photoreceptors to the sky and then gave in when Rabbit started batting his eyelashes and sticking out his bottom lip.

This time, the contest lasted longer and both robots’ arms trembled with the effort. Gradually, Rabbit began to press the Spine’s hand towards the table and a grin arranged itself among his face plates. The sound of Rabbit’s victory was a slight tap this time, rather than a crash.

‘You win. Rabbit, I said you win. Rabbit, will you let go of my hand!’ The Spine sounded more than irritated, almost angry. But why should he be? It was traditional that the loser had his hand ground into the table for as long as Rabbit could get away with it. His refusal to let go might have been one of the reasons the others didn’t like doing it anymore, but they knew to expect it.

Piston defused the brewing argument by bursting into peals of laughter. Rabbit saw the Spine’s anger soften almost at once. His brother sighed, then grabbed Rabbit by the neck, whipped his hat off and began scrubbing his skull with his knuckles, the way he ruffled The Jon’s hair, but twice as hard.

Piston laughed even louder and The Jon joined in, but the noise they made wasn’t enough to drown out Rabbit’s squalls of protest. He struggled against The Spine’s grip, but he didn’t have enough leverage in this position. Eventually his brother let him go, smirking, and Rabbit began grumpily readjusting his bandana which had almost fallen off. Then he went to pick up his hat.

‘P-P-P-Piston, can I have my hat back?’

‘Nope.’

‘Aw, please! Come on, give it me!’

‘Nope, you’ve got to win it off me,’ she said, dangling it out of his reach as he lunged across the table.

‘How?’

‘Arm-wrestle me.’

Rabbit perked up. He was the Arm-Wrestle Champion of the Multiverse, he had never been defeated and even the Amazing Incredible Spider-Hulk couldn’t have beaten him.

‘I’m not sure this is a good idea,’ The Spine said, looking worried. ‘Rabbit, don’t hurt her.’

‘I’m not gonna hurt her, Spine. I’m just g-g-g-gonna get my hat back.’

Piston gave the hat to The Jon, so Rabbit couldn’t cheat, and they sat opposite each other, rested their elbows on the table and gripped hands.

Rabbit thought his victory would be easy. After all, The Jon was brass and he could always beat him. After a whole minute of deadlock, however, he began to wonder if he’d made a mistake. He raised his eyes to Piston’s and saw she was grinning evilly. A second later, his hand was smashed into the table and he realised that Piston could have beaten him right at the beginning if she’d chosen to. The Arm-Wrestle Champion of the Multiverse had met someone stronger than the Spider-Hulk and now his world was crashing down around him. His mismatched, oil-rimmed eyes gazed in horror at Piston, who was still grinning. And still had his hand clamped to the table.

‘Piston wins!’ The Jon crowed. He placed Rabbit’s hat carefully on Piston’s head and her eyes flicked upwards at it. Her grip didn’t give at all and Rabbit found he was powerless to prevent the possibly permanent transferral of ownership of once of his most prized possessions.

‘You can – let him go now – Piston.’ The Spine’s voice was oddly juddery. Was he laughing at Rabbit?

He must have looked pretty dejected, because Piston was suddenly hugging him over the coffee table and he felt a familiar weight settle on his head. Having had the tables, so to speak, ruthlessly turned on him, he now understood better why the others didn’t like arm-wrestling and why The Spine had got so annoyed. Rabbit looked across at his brother and was pleased to see the light was dancing in his eyes, the tension had gone from his shoulders and all in all, he looked an awful lot more cheerful. Rabbit was happy was about this, even though The Spine’s mood had been improved at his expense. It was worth it if his little brother was all right.

‘How do I find out how to play a violin?’ Piston asked as she let him go.

‘What?’ Rabbit said, thrown off by the non sequitur.

‘The Jon gave me a violin yesterday,’ she said. ‘But how do I find out how to play it?’

Rabbit and The Spine turned startled optics on The Jon.

‘She’ll be really good at it,’ he muttered. ‘And we’ve all got stuff. And then we can all play together.’

‘But I need to learn to play it first,’ Piston pointed out. She looked at The Spine.

‘Well, there are teachers, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go into the town too much at the moment,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Someone might recognise you.’

‘Why not look it up in the hall of Wires?’ Rabbit asked, without thinking. There was an extremely tense pause, which Piston broke.

‘How-’ she began, her voice shaking. ‘How would I do that?’

Rabbit hadn’t expected that. He had thought she would be frightened at the thought of going back there again, had thought they were going to have to find some way around the danger of Piston going outside, but he hadn’t reckoned with her gears, clearly. *****  And something else that had been leaping around his brain trying to get his attention for the last couple of minutes finally did.

‘The Spine’ll show you,’ he said. ‘The Jon and I have got stuff to do.’ He dragged The Jon out of the room, closed the door and then they both pressed their ears against the cracks to eavesdrop shamelessly.

_Y-y-you noticed it, right?_

The Jon nodded.

_Ages ago. Do you think they-_

_Ssshhh._

Rabbit could hear The Spine’s voice.

‘Piston, I’m sorry I scared you. Normally, I put my chassis away, but I guess I forgot.’

‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it’

‘But-’

‘No, really. You weren’t to know I’d come barging in. It’s not your fault, Spine.’

‘We should have told you about me.’

‘Why?’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s your business, not mine.’

There was a silence and Rabbit wriggled, trying to see through the crack and keep his ear to it at the same time.

‘Did, did…no, never mind.’

‘What?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Did-does-does it bother you?’ The Spine finally got out and Rabbit could here fear in every syllable.

‘What, the snake-thing? No. Why should it?’

‘It doesn’t?’ The Spine sounded amazed. So was Rabbit. Most humans ran a mile when they saw someone detach their own spine from their skeleton and Piston had found The Spine’s empty body after all.

 _She doesn’t mind?_ he sent The Jon.

 _Nope._ There was a suggestion of a giggle. _I asked her yesterday. She even said- wait, listen!_

‘Of course it doesn’t,’ Piston was saying. ‘It’s just how you’re built. You can’t help it. Actually, I quite like it.’

Rabbit finally managed to snatch a glimpse of the room. The Spine was looking as though someone had just hit him with a frying pan.

‘You what?’ he croaked.

‘Oh, I… it’s just… I don’t know, I’m being silly.’

‘No,’ The Spine said softly. ‘You’re not. Thank you. No one’s ever- thank you.’

‘There’s nothing to thank me for,’ Piston replied, just as softly.

Rabbit grinned to himself.

_Rabbit! Annie’s coming!_

_S-s-s-o what?_

_The coffee table!_

Rabbit’s grin disappeared and he thought of heavy metal hands being slammed into the table with a great deal of force, of different hands being ground against the wood. He threw caution to the winds and yelled

_SCRAMBLE!!!!_

_Rabbit, what on earth?_ The Spine asked.

 _Annie’s coming! The table!_ cried The Jon as he and Rabbit fled for their lives. Behind them, they heard the door fly open and two more pairs of heavy footsteps running the other way.

 

By the time Annie reached the living room, sighing about the noise the robots made on an everyday basis, the room was empty.

 

 *****  Like guts, but more mechanical.


	17. The Adventure of the Speckled Band

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are in the mood for Piston and The Spine having some quality time together.  
> Let me know what you think of the story so far, cos there's not a lot of point writing it if you guys don't enjoy it.  
> Also, I've decided how to end the story, but I've still got a lot to write before I get there, so there'll be plenty more where this came from.  
> Have a good week!

She didn’t tell him about the nightmares, not for a long time, anyway, and by then it had stopped mattering. But walking back into the Hall of Wires was like getting sucked into a horribly vivid dream, one where she couldn’t power up to avoid it. The light was dim and red, the wires were draped like lianas in a rainforest: the room was exactly the same as it had been last week. With one, fairly major, exception, that the man whose body she thought she’d found was walking beside her. And without that grisly addition to the décor, Piston found the room held far fewer horrors for her. Her nerves were further steadied by the total lack of murderers and assorted monsters that so often plagued her dreams, so when The Spine asked gently

‘Are you all right?’ she could say

‘Yes,’ with perfect truth.

He nodded and then looked around.

‘QWERTY? Where are you?’

The screen appeared in front of them with its strange, green face.

‘QWERTY you remember Piston, don’t you? Well, she’s living with us now, so she’ll be in and out of here whenever she wants. Don’t be mean to her, okay?’

‘HI. PISTON.’

‘Erm… hello.’

‘LOLZ.’

‘Lolz?’

‘I’ll explain later.’

 

The Spine began a long and complicated process, checking that the systems upgrades she had been given were working properly and were fully compatible with QWERTY. Then he showed her how to actually use the Hall of Wires, what the internet was and how to use that, the best way to search for things and how to use a pair of headphones. It took ages and long before they were finished they had both received a series of messages:

_Whoever is responsible for the damage to the coffee table had better own up in the next half hour or all four of you will be cleaning out the septic tank tomorrow. Annie._

_Mom, please don’t make them do that. It’s me who has to clean out all their gears and hydraulics when they get dirty. Peter._

_It was Piston!_

_Rabbit, it was just as much your fault as Piston’s. You were the one who wanted to arm-wrestle in the first place._

_You’re such a spoilsport, Spine!_

_I’m sorry, Annie!_

_Don’t worry, Piston. You didn’t know you were doing anything wrong. Just don’t damage the furniture again. Rabbit, this family has been telling you not to break things for over a century. Why doesn’t the message stick? Annie._

_I’m m-m-made of metal. I’m too shiny to be stuck to._

_Don’t be so cheeky when I’m telling you off. Guess it’s only Rabbit on cleaning duty tomorrow then. Annie._

_NOOOOOO!!!_

_Dear, please don’t tease Rabbit like that. You know he’ll just break more things. Also your son’s right. Cleaning sewage out of finger joints takes forever. Peter V._

_I’m not going to ask you how you know that, Peter. Rabbit, you can pay for a new coffee table. And no, you can’t choose it. Annie._

_U-unfair._

_Life’s unfair, Rabbit. Deal with it. Annie._

The Spine was laughing out loud and although Piston was happy to see him so cheerful, she was still anxious.

‘Annie isn’t annoyed with me, is she?’ she asked. ‘She can be quite… fierce sometimes.’

‘You’re all right, Piston. Don’t you remember? She said if the clothes were all she had to pay for, she’d be very surprised. She expected something like this to happen. It always does with baby robots.’

Piston blinked. He thought of her as… a baby? Okay, she had only been with them two and a half weeks and she hadn’t been awake, or even really alive, for her ten years before that, but still. She knew she learnt a lot quicker than human babies and her body was, of course, an adult’s. In amongst all this was something it took her a moment to recognise: disappointment. That puzzled her. Why did she want The Spine to see her as an adult so badly? Or was it just that she wanted his approval?

While she was wrestling with all of this, she heard The Spine say

‘I’m sorry, Piston. I didn’t mean that as an insult.’ What she was feeling must have shown on her face plates. ‘You’re just a lot newer than us. But there’s loads of things Rabbit and The Jon don’t know and they behave like children most of the time.’ He paused, waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t know how to reply. His words hadn’t made her feel any better.

‘I don’t think you’re immature. Well, you can be, but- No, I mean you’re never immature when it’s not the right time… I’m making a mess of this. I’m sorry.’

She still wasn’t sure what to say. Did he mean she could be both mature and immature? Was that a compliment or an insult or neither? The silence thickened and congealed until it had the horrid consistency of five-day old porridge and Piston felt she could no longer stand it.

‘Have you been here all this week?’ she asked. She wasn’t entirely sure what had made her ask that. Normally, she hated the idea of prying into The Spine’s life where she was sure he didn’t want her to go, but she’d had to say something to break the silence and it was the first question that came into her head. Asking it was a mistake.

The Spine’s face closed down.

‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘I had some things I wanted to do.’

Piston showed her maturity and dropped the subject. She turned away and began looking up violin tutorial videos on Youtube. She downloaded some of them to watch later and then searched for websites so that she could cross-reference information and make sure she was doing it right. After a while, she found herself on Google, typing in terms that had cropped up in the past week without explanation.

‘So that’s what a gnu looks like,’ she murmured out loud.

Suddenly, there was metallic clang and a cry of

‘Of course!’

She whipped her head around. The Spine was standing there, gazing off into space, having just smacked himself in the forehead.

‘What?’

‘I just emailed Harriet to see if she knows anyone who plays the violin.’

‘And?’

‘She sent me this.’

There was a small ‘ping’ in Piston’s mind and she opened the email. She had been working on her reading this last week as a distraction from what had happened on Saturday and she found the message fairly easy to read.

 

_Spine,_

_You are kidding, right? How long have you known me? Fifteen years, give or take? And in all that time you seriously didn’t know I teach violin? There’s a huge poster on my shop door, for God’s sake!_

_Why do you want to know anyway? Not thinking of taking it up are you? I can’t see you with a violin, myself. Stick to the guitars. They suit you better._

_Harriet_

_P.S. Or is it that brass girl you introduced me to? What’s her name again?_

 

‘Sooo..?’

‘So, she can teach you to play without anyone else finding out who you are. She already knows!’

‘She doesn’t know it was me who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament though, does she?’

‘Well, no,’ The Spine admitted. ‘But Harriet’s smart and she watches the news. Chances are, she’s figured it out.’

‘But doesn’t that mean a lot of other people will have figured it out too? All those letters that came…’

‘That’s why I said it wasn’t a good idea for you to go into town too much, at least not for a while. Give it some time and everyone’ll forget it ever happened. Especially as it didn’t. You never actually blew up the Houses of Parliament.’ His voice was rich and deep and soothing, like chocolate liqueurs after a bad day, and the despair that had welled suddenly up inside her began to settle again. She swallowed it down and said

‘Yeah. You’re right.’ And then something burst out of her which she had actually wanted to ask for the last five days, but The Spine hadn’t been around and she had been just a little bit afraid. Now he was and she wasn’t, so she said

‘You said you’d explain how you separate yourself out. Can you show me?’

The Spine looked just as astonished as he had done earlier when she had told him she liked this ability of his.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I mean, with what happened last time, I don’t want to scare you again.’

‘I was scared _for_ you, not of you. Now I know it’s normal, I’m fine.’ In truth, there was a tense, anxious heat building up in her core, but she wasn’t about to admit it. She had a feeling it would hurt him and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

‘O-o-okay,’ The Spine said, sounding a bit like Rabbit as he stuttered. He got down onto the floor and stretched out. ‘It’s easiest like this,’ he explained. ‘But I can do it other positions. No, that sounded wrong.’

‘Did it?’ Piston asked, confused.

‘Never mind. I’ve got catches down my spine and I can retract them when I want.’ There was a click and a hiss, a tiny spurt of steam rising from his collar. And then his head wiggled, his fedora fell off and his neck appeared to be growing. Piston was fascinated. More and more neck appeared, but it was getting gradually slimmer. At last, the tip of his vertebrae slipped from his collar and The Spine was in two parts: one, his chassis, looked dead and forlorn, the other was undulating across the floor towards her. He raised his head as he reached her feet.

‘Piston?’

She stared down, photoreceptors wide, but said nothing.

‘Sorry. I’ll get back in. I knew this was too soon.’ He looked away and made to go back to his chassis.

‘Wait.’

He stopped and looked back at her, black hair slipping forward now it was no longer pinned in place by his hat.

Piston crouched down and said

‘I’m taller than you! This is wonderful!’

‘Really? I know you said you liked it, but-’

‘Can I see you climb? How do you do that without limbs?’

‘Er, sure. It’s not that hard.’

He eeled across to the wall and hugged a thick wire, spiralling up it like a boa constrictor, each vertebra providing leverage for the next. It was breath-taking to watch segments of his spine move, like a ripple passing down his body again and again. And then he was above her head in the tangle of wires, slipping over, between, even under them, a lovely metal python in a jungle of rubber vines.

Piston let out a sigh of wonder and instantly, he was there, tail coiled tightly around a wire, head hanging down in front of her.

‘Are you all right?’ He looked so anxious she began to laugh.

‘Spine, this is amazing! It’s – beautiful, you’re beautiful!’ For some reason she didn't understand, the admission flooded her with embarrassment. Her boiler grew hotter, excess steam issued from her face and her bellows seemed to be working faster too.

‘Do you really mean that?’ he asked, a kind of desperation in his face.

‘Yes, of course.’

The Spine gave an enormous sigh and his whole form relaxed. Which was a mistake, because it meant his tail let go of the wire. Piston’s arms shot out and clutched him to her before he could hit the ground.

‘Thanks,’ The Spine said, somewhat muffled, as his face was now pressed against her corset. ‘I’ll be more careful next time.’

‘You’d better be,’ she admonished, carrying him over to his chassis with his tail draped over her arms. ‘Otherwise I’m actually going to find your dead body one day.’ She put him down and he wriggled around, slotted himself back inside his frame and activated the catches. His fingers and toes wiggled, then he sat up and pushed himself to his feet. One long-fingered, silver hand went to his head and he bent down for his hat, but Piston got there first. The Spine opened his mouth, but she simply reached forward and placed the hat on his head, making sure the angle was right.

‘What?’

‘You weren’t gonna steal it?’

‘Nope. It looks better on you.’

The Spine grinned.

‘Thanks. And thanks for what you said just now.’

‘What, that it, you were – beautiful?’ It was much harder to say it the second time round. Piston wondered why that was.

‘Yeah. It means a lot. No one’s ever said that, not even…’ He tailed off.

‘Not even Daphne?’ Was this prying? Perhaps, but he had confided in her about Daphne, after all.

But The Spine gave a bitter sort of laugh.

‘No. Daphne doesn’t even know I can do this. She’d probably leave me if she did.’

‘Why?’

The Spine blinked.

‘What do you mean ‘why’?’

‘Why would she be bothered about? Why would anyone be?’

‘You really mean that, don’t you?’

‘Of course. I wouldn’t say it otherwise.’ Piston was getting impatient. _Can’t he just answer the question?_ she thought.

 

_She really doesn’t understand. Even after we told her about the hate mail, she doesn’t get why people wouldn’t like us._

‘Piston, no one else can do this, not Rabbit, not The Jon and humans certainly can’t. Most folks would probably faint if they saw me get out of my own body. It’s wrong. It’s not natural. That’s how they see it. That’s certainly how Daphne sees it.’ That last had slipped out without his meaning to and he wished he could take it back. It wasn’t fair to either of them to bitch about Daphne to Piston. But the latter put her head on one side, just a little bit further over than a human would, and asked

‘She doesn’t like you being a robot?’ Two green eyes, so similar and yet so different from his own, looked up at him and he saw worry in them. Worry for _him_. This girl had been used and mistreated and was feared and hated by half the world in equal measure. She had huge problems to cope with, so much to learn and was having to come to terms with the fact that she’d never fit in and yet she was still more worried about his wellbeing than her own. The Spine felt a kind of awe at just how kind she was, because that was the reason she was asking, he knew. Or at least, it was only partly nosiness that had prompted the question.

‘…In a way, no.’ There, he had finally admitted it.

‘She doesn’t like you venting steam or drinking oil?’

‘No, she- How do you know that?’ he asked, suddenly suspicious.

Piston looked guilty. She shuffled her feet.

‘…The Jon told me…’

The Spine made a mental note to have a stern word with his younger brother.

‘What else did he say?’

‘Nothing.’

He raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m not supposed to say!’

He raised the other one.

‘Oh, all right. He told me why Rabbit doesn’t like Daphne.’

The Spine lowered his eyebrows.

‘I still feel bad about that,’ he said softly. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at him like that.’

‘Spine? I-I don’t want to pry, but is Daphne the reason you’ve been in here all this time?’

He bit his lip. Should he tell her? But wouldn’t he have to mention _her_ , then? He wasn’t sure he was ready for that.

‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. That was really rude of me! Oh, I’m so stupid sometimes!’

‘No!’

Piston stared at him, looking half confused, half afraid.

‘I mean you’re not stupid. Don’t say that. Ever.’

‘…Okay,’ she said, taken aback by his fervour. But it was important, he knew it was. There were so many people out there who’d hate her and scorn her and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it if she was one of them. And then, because he couldn’t bear to think she might really come to believe she was stupid, he answered her question.

‘Yeah. It was Daphne. I saw her when we went out shopping and I asked her to have dinner with me. She said she was busy, but we could go out Monday.’ Now the story was pouring out of him, like pus drained from a boil, and it was something of a relief to get it out. ‘I booked the table and when I rang her up on Monday to tell her, she said that actually she was going to be busy that night too and she couldn’t put it off. She said we’d got out next Monday instead. I keep thinking I’ve done something-’ _Or haven’t done something._ ‘And really annoyed her. Maybe she doesn’t want to see me anymore.’

‘I can’t believe that,’ Piston said gently. ‘It’s probably all a misunderstanding. Maybe… maybe she thought that _you_ didn’t want to see _her_ because you came to England and then you forgot to call her all that time and that’s why she’s being like this.’

The Spine considered this. It did make a kind of sense, now she suggested it. Their last date had been so awkward, Daph could easily have interpreted that as hesitation on his behalf. After all, it wasn’t that far from the truth, was it? _And if that’s the case,_ The Spine mused, firmly quashing that last thought. _I can easily fix this._

‘Thank you,’ he said out loud.

‘I didn’t do anything. I just pried.’

‘No,’ he insisted. ‘You didn’t pry and you’ve done a lot. You’ve helped me get my head round this and-’ He wanted to say _and you’ve accepted me for who I am_ but he didn’t feel comfortable saying it out loud, so he said, ‘And you’ve been really understanding, you know?’ Heat was rippling through him from his boiler, his core’s energy output increasing rapidly, so that even his fingers and toes, normally stone-cold, felt warm.

‘No, not really,’ she admitted sadly. ‘There’s a lot of things I don’t understand.’

‘Hey.’ He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re doing really well.’

Their eyes met.

‘Am I?’

‘How much have you learnt in the last two and a half weeks? You kinda remind me of when we were all new. We, well Rabbit mainly, used to get frustrated that there was so much we didn’t get. But we get it now, most of it. You will too.’

She was looking deep into his eyes now and four beams of light mingled, casting their faces in dancing, refracting shades of emerald, so that it looked like the pair were carved from gemstones. He opened his mouth to day something, but instead of words, his built-up steam gushed out. He was about to apologise when he saw that there were two identical plumes billowing out of her cheek vents.

The steam filled the room and the light from their optics glittered off it, shifting with the clouds until the Hall of Wires resembled the set of a fantasy film. The moment was magical, spellbinding and, though neither bot admitted it until much later, intimate. But it was all too brief.

_Where are you, Spine? And where’s Piston? It’s gone midnight. Annie._

_Has it?_

_Yes, Spine, it has and Piston still needs her down-time, don’t forget. Annie._

_I’ll go and power down now. Thanks, Annie. And I’m really, really sorry about the table._

_It’s all right. Goodnight, dear. Annie._

‘Goodnight, Spine. And thank you.’

‘Goodnight. And it was my pleasure.’

And she was gone.


	18. The Broken Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There should be feels and heartache if I've done this right. I really hope I have.  
> I can't believe this has got over 200 hits now! That's amazing guys, thank you so much. It's really encouraging and as soon as I've finished my exams, I'm going to jump on my laptop and produce several more chapters. But like I've said before, I'm still working through a backlog, so don't worry, you won't run out of chapters before I run out of exams.
> 
> Have a good week folks, and enjoy!

Monday dawned, as ever, with clear, blue skies and the promise that it was going to be a fine day. Which just goes to show how little the weather knows, because not one of the Walter family thought Monday a fine day. It began with letters.

As the grandfather clock chimed nine and the little imp on its spring came out and nodded to the room, someone pressed the doorbell. This caused a minor panic among the household, as the last time the doorbell had been used had been in 1981, when Rabbit had gone through a phase of ringing it constantly. The Spine had only put the batteries back in a few months ago.

‘I’ll go, shall I?’ Annie asked sarcastically, when it became clear that her family, who had all rushed into the hallway at the bell, were too busy fussing to actually open the door.

Piston found herself hustled into the sitting room by Peter VI, where he took off his dressing gown and draped it over her head.

‘We don’t want anyone to recognise you,’ he whispered.

Piston refrained from pointing out that he had given her such an extensive overhaul that it was doubtful anyone would be able to recognise her. But it seemed he knew what she was thinking, even without seeing her face.

‘I didn’t actually change your face shape, you see. I just made better plates.’

She gave him a thumbs-up to show she’d understood, because speaking might draw attention to her and Peter obviously didn’t want that. She strained to hear what was going on at the door.

‘…So, as I say, we’re very sorry, ma’am, that there’s been such a delay with your mail. O’Connell’s not been himself lately. He keeps talking about your robots like, like, erm…’

There was an impatient sound from Annie.

‘Just ignore him. Rabbit, stop doing that right this second.’

‘Er… right, well, here’s your mail, anyway. I’d better, erm, yeah I got this… Goodbye!’ There was the sound of footsteps hurrying away from the house.

‘Rabbit, how can I make a valid complaint to the postal service if you keep scaring their employees away? No, don’t answer that.’

Piston shook the dressing gown off her head, thrust it at Peter and went to satisfy her burning curiosity.

 

A sack was sitting in the middle of the hallway, crammed with letters. All eyes were trained on it as Annie pulled an envelope out of the mass and read it. She let out an angry hiss.

‘Not more?’ The Spine asked.

‘More.’

‘M-m-more what?’ Rabbit piped up. When Annie and The Spine looked at each other, but said nothing, he said. ‘Come on! You’ve got to tell us! T-T-T-TEEELLLL MEEEEE!!!’

Piston’s head vibrated with the noise he made.

‘All right, all right!’ Annie snapped. ‘But don’t say we didn’t warn you. People have been writing anonymous letters to us about Piston!’

Rabbit and The Jon gaped.

‘Say what?’

‘Hate mail, Jon,’ The Spine explained. ‘They don’t like Piston and they don’t like us for taking her in.’

Piston herself ignored this. She was drawn to the sack of letters. She still hadn’t read the first batch and a sort of morbid curiosity was consuming her as to the contents of these envelopes. Dread filled her and she really didn’t want to know what they contained and yet she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and taking the letter from Annie. 

It was addressed to ‘those fucking dancing tin men’. And that was only the start. The flap split under her fingers and she shook open the letter.

 

‘YOURE JUST CLOCKWORK SOLDIERS THE LOT OF YOU PRETENDING TO BE ALIVE WHILE YOU TAKE OUR LIVES. HOW COULD YOU SHELTER A MURDERER? YOURE AS BAD AS IT IS. IF YOU HAVE ANY SENSE OF JUSTICE MELT IT DOWN OR CRUSH IT AND SEND THE BITS FOR SCRAP.’

 

What hurt her the worst? Was it the way the writer referred to her as ‘it’? Or was it the accusation of murder? Or was it the fact that, whoever this person was, they really wanted her dead? When the Walter robots got frustrated with each other, phrases like ‘scrap yard’ and ‘hydraulic press’ were bandied about, but no one actually meant them. But this person did. This person could watch Piston be flattened without batting an eyelid. Or would they watch her die, and smile? The thought chilled her, quite literally, to the core. The green matter in her chest normally felt warm, but now it was like a pulsing block of ice.

So why on earth had she just picked up another letter? She watched her hand move, as though someone else was controlling it, and saw the fingers tear open another envelope. This one was even worse.

 

‘IM COMING FOR YOU BITCH AND U WONT KNOW WHEN. SOMEONE HAS TO FINISH YOU AND ITS GONNA BE ME. YOULL FIND OUT EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS TO EVIL HORES WHO THINK THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH MURDER AND THEN I’M GONNA HACK YOU APART AND STICK YOUR HEAD OVER THE FIREPLACE. YOU WONT ESCAPE UNLESS YOU END IT YOURSELF.’

 

People were speaking to her, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying, because all she was aware of was one word repeating itself in her mind as if her brain was glitching: _murderer, murderer, murderer._ Because she was, wasn’t she? The realisation of what she had almost done at Westminster Palace, the sudden awareness that she had almost killed thousands of people, had obscured the memory of the person she actually had killed. _Slaughtered._ Because he hadn’t been attacking her, had he? He had been defenceless, just as Peter had been on the rooftop, but unlike Peter, Marcus Barnes had not survived and no matter how much she tried to tell herself that she had not been able to override her instructions to defend herself, she had been able to on the rooftop, hadn’t she?

_Murderer, murderer, murderer,murderer,muderermuderermurdererMURDERERMURDERER-_

_CLANG!_

Piston was knocked to the floor by the blow and for a moment, her optics shut down completely. As they rebooted, she became aware that the mental glitching had stopped, though the accusation and the guilt and the self-disgust were all still alive and kicking.

She blinked and several faces came into focus. Annie and Peter VI and The Spine were bent over her, all looking frantic. The Spine also looked guilty. Piston gradually became aware that her left cheek ‘bone’ was dented and she moaned as pain crackled through her circuitry.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t what else to do!’ The Spine cried.

She opened her mouth, but-

_Oh no._

It wasn’t until she started that she realised she hadn’t been barking, as though her distress had been momentarily beyond it. But her condition flared up now with a vengeance.

_What did you do?_ she asked The Spine, shakily.

_I slapped you in the face…_

_Why?_

_You-you were shouting. We couldn’t get you to stop! I tried speaking to you over the Wi-Fi, but you didn’t hear me!_

_I was shouting?_

_You kept screaming ‘murderer’._

_…They’re right, Spine. I_ am _a murderer._

_But you stopped-_

_I didn’t stop myself from killing Marcus! If I could do it on the rooftop, why couldn’t I do it then?_

_…I don’t know… But I do know you didn’t know what you were doing._

_That’s hardly an excuse. The man’s still dead. And, and he was one of the ones who made me! Spine, I killed my creator!_ she wailed. The barking had now become a sort of jolting keen that tore itself from her throat and rent the air around her. Everyone put their hands over their ears, but she couldn’t control it. And what was the point of trying, anyway? She had caused so much damage already, did a little more matter?

_Piston?_ It was The Jon. He was standing a little way behind the others and he was holding his guitar. _Just listen, ‘kay?_ He began to strum softly and randomly at first, but as he hit on a set of chords he liked, he played louder. And Piston, desperate to escape from the torture her own mind was inflicting upon her, listened. And listened. And listened.

At some point, Rabbit had vanished and then reappeared holding his melodica and The Spine’s guitar. By now, no one was speaking, the humans were all squatting on the hall floor with Piston and everyone was absorbed in the music.

Piston’s keen separated out into barks again and slowly, ever so slowly, they quietened and calmed until they stopped.

But the automatons kept playing. They didn’t play songs, they just let the music flow and The Jon crooned along to it in a way that Piston found very comforting. It got inside her somehow and wiggled through her wires, cleaning away some of the dirty horror and guilt that the storm of emotion brought on by the letters had left behind. It was a start, but those feelings weren’t gone, for they had left behind a filthy, stinking residue that not even song could shift.

 

At last, the music petered out and Piston felt curiously empty and limp, like a wrung-out dish cloth. Her gaze fell on the sack of letters once more, but some things are too horrifying even for morbid curiosity and she no longer wanted to know what the rest of them contained. Shakily, her cheek still smarting with pain, she lurched to her feet. She felt the family’s eyes upon her.

‘I need to be alone for a bit,’ she said dully and she crossed the hall and began to climb the stairs. Out of the corner of her photoreceptor, she saw The Spine twitch, as though he wanted to stop her, saw Annie open her mouth and then close it again. They had calmed her down, but there was nothing they could say that would make everything all right again. They could not raise the dead and nor could they forgive her for what she had done when they hadn’t been hurt by it.

 

Piston reached the little room they had given her and looked around it, seeing it all anew. There was nothing of her in this room: it was almost completely bare. There was the cupboard she powered down in, there was a desk, a chair and a table lamp that she never used and there was a wardrobe full of clothes she hadn’t bought. That was it. It could, she thought flatly, have been anyone’s room. She could vanish right now and there would barely be a mark left on the world to show that she had ever been there. No, not quite. There would still be a body rotting quietly in a graveyard in South London. Even though she had only woken up a few hours ago, she walked back into her cupboard, closed the door and powered down. Perhaps in dreams she could escape the terrible feeling that the world would be a better place without her.

 

The Spine watched her go and almost went to stop her, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Inwardly, he raged against his helplessness. Every time before, they had managed to calm her, to say or do something that let her see things in a different light, so that she could carry on. But he wasn’t sure there could be any healing from this wound. He was vividly reminded of how she had collapsed on the rooftop and how he had thought that she wouldn’t get up again. But she had and she had done so well. He couldn’t bear the thought that it had all been for nothing. She had had almost no life at all until only three weeks ago and now he couldn’t escape the impression that he might be witnessing its end.

 

Everyone was on edge for the rest of the day, bickering over the smallest things and finding every pretext they could to hover near Piston’s room in case she needed something. They vied between wanting to respect her wishes and leave her alone and wanting to say something, _anything,_ that might help.

_Why does she always do this when I have a date?_ The Spine thought and instantly hated himself for doing so. Piston couldn’t help it. She certainly didn’t _want_ to feel this way and she hadn’t wanted to kill that man, Marcus. _She didn’t want to kill him._ He’d have to check of course, but didn’t that mean that, legally, it wasn’t murder? In fact, it wasn’t even manslaughter, was it? Because she hadn’t been properly alive at the time. She couldn’t have made a decision to kill him and no matter what she said, The Spine was sure she couldn’t have overridden the commands programmed into her. That was what mattered! Now he just had to get Piston to see it that way… Except he couldn’t because he couldn’t even see her. So he went to speak to Annie about it instead.

‘It makes me so angry!’ she fumed, as soon as he set foot in the living room. She had it to herself and she was pacing the same patch of carpet over and over again in frustration. ‘What those idiots wrote and how she’s just accepted it!’

The Spine stayed silent.

‘I mean, _yes_ , she did technically kill him, but it’s just so unfair that she’s got herself worked up over it and he was hardly a loss to society, was he? I mean, look at what he tried to do with her, never mind what she was built for in the first place!’

‘She doesn’t know that, Annie,’

‘And we can’t even tell her about it, because that’ll hurt her even more! She probably wouldn’t understand most of it anyway and I’m not going through The Talk again. It was bad enough with Peter.’

‘Annie, we need to make her see that she didn’t want to kill him, that she didn’t have a choice. Doesn’t that mean it isn’t murder, under the law?’

Annie paused in her attempts to wear out the carpet.

‘Maybe. But even if that’s true, she won’t believe it, will she?’

‘If we tell her often enough, she might come to. If only…’ _If only we could talk to her._ Now they had something that might help, but it made no difference if they couldn’t tell Piston. The Spine sighed and retreated to the Hall of Wires, where he could research definitions of murder, manslaughter and culpability without everyone else breathing down his neck.

 

He had put on his best shirt and waistcoat to meet Daphne, the expensive silk ones that she had bought him herself. He didn’t bring roses this time, because he didn’t want to remind her of their last date, and he made sure to arrive at the restaurant early. He ordered her favourite red so that it would be there when she arrived and then The Spine sat and waited, only vaguely listening to the tinkling of the piano in the corner of the room. His worst fear was that she wouldn’t come.

But at 7.30 on the dot, Daphne strode through the doors, left her coat with the waiter and seated herself opposite The Spine, a gentleman through and through, had risen to his feet as soon as he had seen her. This time, she was dressed in an elegant, scarlet jumpsuit, with matching heels, nails, lipstick and handbag. She put him in mind of a character from a certain who-dunnit board game, but he wisely decided to keep that to himself.

‘Hey, Daph. You look great.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You said your week was gonna be busy. Did everything work out all right?’

‘Uh-huh. The meeting went pretty well, so it was worth all the fuss in the end.’

The Spine poured her wine and she raised the glass to her lips.

‘Mmm, I needed that.’ She picked up the menu and began scanning it. ‘Are you gonna eat tonight?’

Knowing it irritated her when she was the only one eating, and desperate to prove that she didn’t have to be uncomfortable around him, he said

‘Sure,’ and picked up a menu himself.

 

The meal was going well and he was so relieved. Daphne wasn’t being especially cold towards him and although there were one or two awkward silences, they didn’t last very long. He even managed to get her laughing and as the gelato arrived, he knew it was going to be all right.

‘What’re you smiling about?’ Daphne asked teasingly.

‘I was just thinking how lucky I am,’ he said, truthfully. ‘All the people you could be with and you chose me.’

‘Well, it’s not everyday a girl comes across a real gentleman, especially not such a handsome one.’

If he could, The Spine would have flushed with embarrassment. Daphne wasn’t usually quite so forthcoming with compliments. His smile broadened and his hand left his spoon in its dish and glided across the table to take hers. She smiled too.

 

He had paid the exorbitant bill, nipped into the gents to remove the worst of the meal from his system, food-flecked gears being another thing that understandably annoyed Daphne, and now they were in their favourite bar, snuggled up together in a corner with their drinks abandoned on the table.

‘So how’s the new addition to your family?’ Daph asked. ‘Is he still having problems?’

‘Yeah,’ The Spine sighed. ‘It’s hard getting through to - him. And it’s so hard to know what to say, what will help, what won’t, even though we’ve been in that sort of position ourselves.’

‘Well, I hope you work it out. I’m sure he’ll be fine with you to look after him.’

Was there a slight undercurrent of jealousy in her voice? It was possible: he had, after all, entirely forgotten about Daphne when Piston had arrived, but he hoped he was hearing things. They had only just patched everything up again. Now wasn’t the time for another argument.

‘Thanks. If I’m brutally honest, it’s nice to get it all out my head for bit.’ It was. No matter how much he liked Piston, it was something of a relief not to have to worry about her, just for the evening. He sighed and, before he could stop himself, blew steam all over Daphne’s hair.

‘Spine!’ She jerked away from him.

‘Sorry, Daph!’

‘Do you have any idea how long it takes me to do my hair? I don’t want it messed up by your steam!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘And it’s hot! Are you ever gonna remember that _I_ can feel pain?’

The Spine flinched at that last remark, or rather, at the implication that _he_ didn’t feel pain. Why was she overreacting so much, anyway?

‘Daph, I’m sorry,’ he said, yet again. ‘I swear, I won’t do it again.’

She humphed, and folded her arms, still sitting out of reach. All that effort had been for nothing and she was now just as annoyed with him as she had been before. Dread was boiling up out of his core and flowing like oil through his chassis. It was confirmed when a familiar, and unwelcome, voice said

‘Hey, look, it’s the Exhaust Pipe!’

‘Looks like he’s had a row with his girlfriend!’ There was a great deal of laughter.

‘Can robots even have girlfriends? I mean, they can’t love, right?’

There was more laughter and then the group drifted further away and their conversation was swallowed up by the hubbub of the bar.

The Spine opened his mouth to say something, fearing a repeat of their last date. But Daphne got there first.

‘What am I doing?’ she said, looking at the ceiling and laughing falsely.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m sitting in a bar with a _robot_ , for God’s sake, wondering if we’ll ever have a future together.’

The Spine felt his bellows seize up for a second.

‘But you can’t even keep your steam to yourself, so what are the chances of that?’

‘Daph, I-’

‘God, my friends were right.’

‘Right about what?’ The dread had spread all the way through him now and his power core seemed to be freezing the water in his chest instead of boiling it.

‘I can’t believe I thought you could change.’

‘Daph, what did your friends say?’

She finally spoke to _him_ instead of to the ceiling.

‘They reminded me you’re not human.’

‘But, Daph, you’ve always known that. It’s not like I can hide it.’

‘I wish you could! Then maybe we’d have chance. Do you have any idea how people act around me when they find out I’m dating a _machine_? No, because you never bothered to find out, did you?’

‘I didn’t know! I’m sorry.’ But a flicker of anger was stirring inside him now. ‘Do _you_ have any idea how people treat _us?_ How much it hurts? Did you ever bother to find that out?’

She laughed coldly.

‘Oh yeah, because all those fan girls of yours are really looking down on you for being a robot. That must hurt _so_ bad.’ Old quarrels, long since buried, were resurfacing like tortoises after hibernation and the argument was turning uglier by the second.

‘ _Some_ people like us. The majority don’t think we’re even alive, that we don’t have feelings.’

‘Are you? Do you? Cos I thought you did, but now I think maybe I was wrong.’

The Spine’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t really have just said that, could she? Her words pierced him like shards of glass and he could find no words of his own to defend himself.

‘After what happened in England, everyone’s been saying I was wrong for dating you, that if one robot can become a murderer and a terrorist, then others can too. I agreed to come out with you tonight because I wanted to see if you could prove my friends wrong, if there was actually some hope for us.’ Daphne paused to breathe and then carried on with her furious tirade. ‘But there isn’t. Because no matter how much of a gentleman you are, you’re never going to be human. You never will be, Spine. That drunk girl’s right. You’re just a machine, pretending to be like us and if machines had feelings, that robot would never have tried to kill all those people. She’d have killed herself first, rather than do it.’

‘You’re saying I’d blow people up? Are you insane?’

‘You might not, but I can’t say the same about every member of that ‘family’ of yours!’ she shot back, sketching inverted commas with her fingers.

‘Don’t you dare say that about my brothers!’ The Spine growled, jerking to his feet, now positively livid.

‘Or what? Are you gonna prove that you don’t have feelings?’

‘Pot calling the kettle black.’

Daphne sucked in an outraged breath. They were both on their feet by now, glaring at each other.

‘You’re saying _I_ don’t have any feelings? What would you know about it, you freak?’ she spat. ‘You can’t feel anything! You can’t even love!’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Really?’ Daphne laughed again.

The whole bar was listening by now.

‘Why did you agree to go out with me in the first place, then, if this is how you feel?’

‘Because I was fed up with all the assholes who promise everything and give nothing. I thought a robot might be different. I was wrong.’

‘Wrong? I did everything I could to keep you happy!’ Normally, The Spine would rather have severed all his own oil-lines than talk about something so intimate in public, but he was beyond caring now. ‘I didn’t talk about how _I_ was, because you don’t like being reminded I’m a robot. I kept my steam inside as much as I could, even when the pressure damaged my pipes. I didn’t drink oil around you, even when I was so dry my joints were seizing up. Do you know how much it hurt, how dangerous it was? I put myself in danger for your sensibilities and I even scared my own brothers because you refused to understand them. And now you claim I did nothing for you?’ His voice cracked. ‘I did _everything._ Why wasn’t that good enough?’

‘You’re right,’ she said casually. ‘You were real attentive, Spine. But the whole point of a relationship is love. In all that time, did you ever say you loved me?’

There was a collective indrawn breath, as though this was some tacky film. Everyone was looking at him, waiting for a reply. He couldn’t make it, though, because the answer was ‘no’. He had never told Daphne he loved her and he finally found himself facing the reason why. He had never said he loved her because he didn’t. He had been so desperate to have _someone_ that he had been prepared to… to make-do with whatever came to hand. That wasn’t a flattering description of Daphne, but the argument had stripped all of his delusions from him and now he saw her for what she was. She had agreed to go out with him for the novelty value and then found that a mechanical boyfriend was too much for her to stomach. So she had tried to get him to hide it, no matter how impossible that was. And now she blamed him for it all, even though it wasn’t his fault: he had never asked to be like this. He had never asked to be built in the first place.

Daphne and the crowd heard his long silence and spotted the answer it concealed.

‘You see? You never loved me. You’ve never loved _anyone_ , because you can’t. As far as I’m concerned, we were never together. Goodbye, freak.’ And with that parting shot, she stalked away through the crowd, leaving The Spine to be engulfed in the rising tide of despair that filled him and washed away the shattered pieces of his world.


	19. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, as it turns out, they don't.
> 
> I cannot believe it took me this long to use this chapter title, but having said that, I think it fits pretty well here.  
> Thank you, as ever, to you wonderful people for reading this far. I hope you're ready for some more of The Spine's relationship issues, some of Piston's nightmares and our brass girl bravely facing the truth.

The door swung shut behind Daphne and immediately the noise erupted again. Everyone was discussing what had just happened, but The Spine ignored them all. He was desperately trying to find something to give him hope and not a single thing sprang to mind. He had spent the last eight months walking on eggshells around Daphne, trying to be something he wasn’t more than he ever had before and ultimately it had all been for nothing. She simply hadn’t been able to accept what he was.

His gaze fell on their glasses, still sitting serenely on the table, as though Daph had walked over to the bathroom, not out of his life. The sight of them made him realise that his throat pipes was dry, a sure sign that his boiler would be soon. He drained his glass of water and went over to the bar. The crowd let him through easily, staring avidly at him and then talking behind their hands as soon as he had passed. The Spine placed the glasses on the bar and then slumped onto one of the stools.

‘I think you need something a bit stronger than that, don’t you?’ asked the barman when he requested another water.

The Spine ignored him. He didn’t feel up to explaining what would happen to his boiler if he tried putting alcohol in it, but he wished more than ever that he was human. At least then drink could have numbed the pain for a while. He swallowed the water like another man might down whiskey, ordered another and sat there, brooding.

The other patrons were keeping their distance and from the snatches of conversation that he heard, despite concerted efforts not to, opinions were mixed. Some clearly sympathised with Daphne and some were wondering why anyone would go out with a robot in the first place. But a few seemed to be on his side and were condemning the way Daphne had treated him. That didn’t necessarily mean they thought he was a person, however.

‘Hey, Exhaust Pipe, do I get that kish now?’ The girl lurched against the bar and then leaned sideways into him. Even among the general reek of booze, he could smell the alcohol on her breath. ‘Go on, she’sh ditched ya now. I’ll take her plashe.’

Didn’t she ever give up? The Spine considered asking her why she wanted him to kiss her so much if she thought it would be like snogging an exhaust pipe. Possibly that was _why_ she wanted to – just to see if it really was. A part of him was tempted to round on her, to make her understand what her constant meddling had cost him, but the impulse died away almost soon as it had come. She wouldn’t have understood, even if she had been sober and he had no desire to bare his soul a second time that night.

But it seemed he had no need to, for his run of bad luck finally broke. Just as the girl was complaining that he kept ignoring her, in slurring tones that left no one in any doubt that she was as pissed as a rat in a barrel of beer, another voice said loudly

‘Oh for God’s sake, Brianna, leave the poor guy alone. He’s got enough problems without you burping all over him.’

‘I want… want him to kish me!’

‘Don’t you think he’s suffered enough for one night?’ the newcomer said acidly. She was quite tall, with spiky, blonde hair and she dressed like a punk rocker. Among the suits and dresses that most of the clientele wore, she stood out almost as much as The Spine did. ‘Go on. Get out of here before I kick your ass.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ Brianna all but screamed. She was still right next to The Spine and her shrill voice went ringing through his head and made him wince. ‘What are you even doing here? You’re not classy enough for a place like this!’ She burped and The Spine leaned away from her in distaste.

The blonde girl raised a dark brow, but she didn’t raise her voice a decibel further.

‘I’m classier than you are. You think getting wasted every night is cool? Well, go do it some place else, or there won’t be any liquor left for the rest of us.’

‘Not ‘til I’ve had my kiss,’ Brianna cried and The Spine suddenly found himself pulled into her embrace. He tried to fend her off, but it was difficult to do without hurting her and that was the one thing he couldn’t do. But the blonde girl stepped in, yanking Brianna away from him and right off her stool. Brianna raised a hand, clearly intending to slap the blonde girl in the face. But her opponent caught her hand effortlessly and bent it backwards. Brianna began to cry.

‘Just get out,’ the blonde said and gave her a push. ‘And don’t come back.’ Brianna obeyed. Then, before The Spine could say a word, the blonde girl asked, ‘Do you always surround yourself with such bitches?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Your ex and that drunken slut, Brianna. Is that masochism or just bad luck?’

‘…Bad luck,’ The Spine admitted, somewhat perplexed. ‘Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.’

‘No one should have to get kissed by Brianna. That’s a fate worse than death.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Katja. Yours is… Spine?’

‘The Spine, yeah.’

‘ _The_ Spine, hey? You’re with Steam Powered Giraffe, right?’

‘Er, yeah. Do you know us?’

‘Not really. I’ve got a friend who loves you lot, though. She used to see you at Balboa Park all the time, but then she had to move away. Drink?’ She plonked herself down in Brianna’s vacant seat and raised her eyebrows at him.

‘I’ve still got one, thanks. But let me pay for it. You’ve already done me a favour tonight.’

‘Wow. You really are a gentleman. Vodka and coke. Is that vodka or tequila you’re drinking?’

‘It’s water.’

‘Really? Your ex dumps you in a huge, public fight and you’re on water?’

‘It’s… for my boiler. Putting alcohol in it isn’t really a good idea.’

‘That makes sense I guess.’ Katja was silent for a bit, sipping her vodka and coke. ‘So… you’re really a robot?’

‘Yes,’ The Spine said shortly. He really wasn’t in the mood for anymore criticism.

‘…Cool.’

‘Cool?’

‘Well, yeah, course it is. You’re a machine, but you’re, like, alive. That’s amazing.’ She looked at the expression on his face. ‘Your ex didn’t think so, though, did she?’

‘No, she didn’t.’

‘Her loss, someone else’s gain.’

She was being incredibly blunt, but for some reason he found that remarkably refreshing. She sounded like she’d been through a few messy break-ups herself and The Spine found it easier and easier to talk to her as he discovered that she really did think it was cool that he was a robot. That wasn’t a reaction you met every day, except among the fans. Oh, many people would _say_ that they liked robots etc, etc, but put them face to face with one and often they let bigotry get in the way.

‘So where did you learn that thing you did with that girl’s hand?’ he asked.

‘My local dojo. I go about five times a week.’

‘Remind me never to annoy you.’

Katja snorted.

‘You’re made of what, steel? Like I could hurt you.’

‘Titanium.’

‘Then I definitely couldn’t hurt you.’

‘You don’t need to use your fists to hurt me,’ The Spine said without thinking.

Katja’s face darkened.

‘I can’t believe she did that. I mean, you’re a robot, what does she expect? That you’re Pinocchio and you’ll suddenly become a ‘real boy’? I mean, you _are_ real.’

‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

The Spine said nothing more, simply smiled at her.

 

The figures were robots. No human had skin that shone like that.

‘Stop,’ she said. That wasn’t in her programming, was it?

‘Y-y-you can’t do this. You can’t blow people up.’ What did that mean? Were they new instructions? But she didn’t understand them, so she ignored them.

‘We can help you.’ Help? The counting sped up again. The silver one climbed towards her, speaking. But she couldn’t concentrate on the words. He was coming too close. She had to defend. Like before, her arm shot out and the silver man disappeared down the slope of the roof. He didn’t get up again. _Sp-Spine?_ But the thought was snatched from her by the counting, leaving only a hideous sense that she had done something terrible.

‘You k-k-k-k-k-k-killed h-h-him!’ Rabbit screamed, glitching worse than ever in his anguish.

_What? No! Spine!_

Rabbit threw a tile at her and so did The Jon. There were people pressing in on her from all sides and stones were ringing off her body, denting her plates and causing currents of pain to go sparking through her circuits. She fell, but the hail of stones didn’t stop and neither did the torrent of curses that they were all pouring on her, threatening things she didn’t have a name for. A stone smashed one of her photoreceptors and as pain lanced back into her brass skull, she could feel torrents of oil coursing down her cheek.

Darkness enveloped her.

She pushed the white, wooden door in front of her open and slipped through. The space beyond was warm and dimly lit in red and there was a shape in the middle of the room. The Spine gazed lifelessly up at the ceiling, his neck almost completely severed by a vicious blow.

‘No!’ she cried, dropping to her knees beside him.

‘Yes,’ he croaked, his mouth moving, even though there was no light at all from his eyes. ‘You killed me, remember?’

Her hand was dented and mangled where she had hit him.

‘And me.’

It was Marcus, his head flopping sideways at an unnatural angle, his neck broken exactly the same way The Spine’s was.

Two sets of blank eyes stared at her accusingly.

‘I-I didn’t mean to,’ she whispered, trying to placate them.

‘You still did it though. You murdered your own creator,’ Marcus growled.

‘And the one who took you in,’ The Spine hissed. His head writhed, his vertebrae peeling away from his body and he began to squirm towards her, his head dragging across the ground and as she screamed, the darkness sucked her back under.

‘Look!’ The Jon pointed upwards and she saw the gathering clouds. ‘That one looks like a pegicorn. There’s the wings and that’s the horn!’

‘No, that’s an eagle playing a guitar!’ she insisted.

‘And that’s a dragon.’

‘Where?’

‘Those two sticky-up bits are the wings and that long bit is the fire coming out its mouth.’

‘Well, that one looks like Rabbit holding a shoe.’

‘How?’

‘Those two bits of blue sky are his cheek vents and that dark bit of cloud there is the shoe, see?’

The Jon beamed at her.

‘You’re really good at this, but you got it wrong. Look.’ He pointed again.

She looked upwards and saw it wasn’t Rabbit in the clouds at all, but The Spine and he wasn’t holding a shoe, but his own severed head.

 

It was Piston’s own body that saved her. Early Thursday morning, before the heat of the day had sucked the moisture from the air, she awoke. She didn’t want to, hadn’t intended to, but for some reason she was now awake. She kept her eyes closed stubbornly and tried to power-down again. Her dreams were no better than her waking thoughts, but at least she didn’t have to try to talk to anyone. But she couldn’t power-down. That panicked her for a moment, but she realised almost instantly that it was a temporary side-effect of her power core surging. As was the speed of her current thoughts. With this knowledge, she was no longer worried, but she was still frustrated that her core had taken away her means of hiding from the world.

_Well, if I can’t hide from it, I shall have to deal with it, I suppose._ It wasn’t a welcome thought, but unless she wanted to stand in her cupboard for several days, she would have to. And, although she could easily have done so when her power was low, Piston now found she had far too much energy to remain motionless for that long. She opened the door and stepped out into her room.

The first thing she saw was the small pile of paper someone had left on her desk. She walked over, stiffly because she had remained motionless for so long, and picked them up. They were printed pages from various government websites giving definitions of ‘murder’, ‘manslaughter’ and ‘culpability’, Someone had annotated them, underlining phrases such as ‘malice aforethought’ and scrawled notes in the margins like ‘You didn’t mean anyone harm’.

Oil welled up in her eyes. The Spine had done this, she knew, to make her realise that it hadn’t been murder after all. She read all the definitions and all his notes and by the time she had finished, the pages were speckled with black droplets. With her thoughts racing this fast, the extra power from her core broadening her mind, she knew what he had written was the truth, but there was something missing from his argument. Something she didn’t want to confront, but now knew she had to.

Piston sat down in her desk chair and cast her mind back over her memories and unwillingly, but mindful of the necessity of this task, she immersed herself in them.

 

_…As her core sputtered and fitted, her mind expanded and contracted, now big and empty, now tiny, like the mind of an amoeba…_ and there was nothing she could to about it.

_2… 3… 5…_

_She didn’t know when the counting had started, only that it didn’t stop. It filled her, steadied her, stopped the strange, rocketing motions that her mind had been subjected to last time. The people around her were dim shapes making dull sounds, but she didn’t have the mental capacity to try to perceive them more clearly…_ then, or later.

_‘Why are you talking to it, Marcus? It can barely understand you.’_

_‘She understands more than you think, don’t you, my dear?’ She looked at him. She didn’t know what ‘my dear’ meant._ But I do now!

_…The counting was relentless. At first it was a support, to stop her mind from crumbling, but now… Now it imprisoned her. She wasn’t sure how, but she felt that in some way, the counting was responsible for her… stupidity. Every time she had a… a thought, the counting sped up. It overwhelmed her until there was nothing else…_ no mind to think with.

 

_‘Are the defence protocols on?’_

_‘Yes,’ Marcus said. ‘They’re on a proximity alert.’ As he said it, a siren started up somewhere, coming closer and closer. Both men froze, but she continued towards them. The siren faded away again. They hadn’t moved. They were too close. She had to defend. Her hand shot out and caught Marcus on the side of the neck. He crumpled. There were cries and yells around her. Have I done something wro- 829,839,853,857, 859, 863… 877…_ They put the protocols in my mind.

 

_The silver one climbed towards her, speaking. But she couldn’t concentrate on the words. He was coming too close. She had to defend._ I had to obey the programme.

 

_The silver one had shouted at her. She stopped, unsure if it was a threat. 1433,1439,1447,1451, 1453, 1459… 1471… The counting had sped up again, but for no reason._ Why did that happen when The Spine spoke?

 

_She didn’t understand. She had to defend._

_‘Defend,’ she said. That was what she had been told to do._ It was all I _could_ do.

 

_She understood what a bomb was, could calculate with perfect precision the number of people who would die if she followed her instructions and most of all she understood what that would mean._ But can I go against my programming? _All this went through in her head in a second and then the answer presented itself. If she was never turned on again, she couldn’t fulfil the programme. She could feel the power surge dying, the limits creeping back around her mind. But nothing could prevent her from doing this._ It took the power surge. Without it…

 

And with that, she resurfaced, shutting down the memories as she finally confronted what had been lurking in her mind. She hadn’t been able to shut herself down before because without the extra power from her erratic core, she hadn’t had the mental capacity to do so. She had been helpless, a slave to the instructions that someone else had violated her mind with. Rather than face that horror, she had tried to blame herself for Marcus’s death, because that would have meant that she had had some form of choice over her own life. But the ice-cold truth Piston now forced herself to face was that she hadn’t. That was what The Spine had missed from his notes, probably for precisely the same reasons. It was not that she had been coerced into doing what she did. That was like saying a knife was coerced into stabbing someone. And the last memory she had looked at had made her realise something else too: what would have happened had she not killed Marcus would have been much worse. Because from what Peter had told her, Special Branch had only been alerted to the reality of the threat the Restoration Group had posed by the finding of Marcus’s body. And if they hadn’t known, then the Walters would never have been called in to help and by now half of London would be dead and the UK would be neither a kingdom, nor united.

She knew all of this with the perfect clarity that her increased energy lent her mind and at last the guilt began to drain away. She would never be happy or comfortable with the fact that she had killed Marcus, but now Piston knew it was something she could put behind her. And now she knew that there was no point looking for forgiveness, not because she wouldn’t find it, but because she was not the one who needed to be forgiven. If anything, Marcus and his cronies should be apologising to _her._

Piston did her daily maintenance tasks, decided on a change of clothes, then squared her shoulders and walked out of her room.


	20. Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There're extra points for anyone who works out why this chapter's called what it is.  
> I really hope everyone's still enjoying this story. I can't believe how far we've got already!

 ‘Piston?’ She had almost collided with The Spine, who seemed to have been hovering outside her doorway. She considered him. He looked at once unhappy and relieved and not just about her self-imposed eremitism.

‘You’re awake. Did you… did you read..?’

‘Yes. I did and you’re right. I’m not to blame.’

The Spine looked taken aback.

‘That was what you meant, wasn’t it?’ Piston asked, worrying that she had read this entire thing the wrong way.

‘Of course it was,’ he said and smiled. ‘I just didn’t expect you to accept it so easily.’

‘I had a trawl through my memories,’ she explained. ‘And I think what I really couldn’t face was that I had absolutely no choice in the matter, not until my power core surged. Speaking of which, that’s happening at the moment. It woke me up and now I can’t power down. I can think really easily now and my memories are so much sharper and I can see things in them that I couldn’t before and it made me realise I physically couldn’t have tried to hurt anyone, I couldn’t even think, because the counting always stopped me and-’

The Spine held up his hands.

‘Piston,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Slow down. I can barely understand what you’re saying. You’re having a power surge now?’

‘See, you do understand me.’

‘No, I just guessed. I’ve never seen you hyper before.’ But he was still grinning and the sight sent a wave of even more energy coursing through her system. It startled Piston, but The Spine didn’t seem to notice.

‘Have I really been powered down for three days?’ she asked, checking her internal clock.

‘Yeah. We were getting worried about you,’ The Spine said softly. His optics were glowing with concern. ‘You sound all right, but are you?’

Piston wanted to dance and have a tickling match with Rabbit and The Jon and run around the house doing a hundred things she probably wasn’t supposed to be doing, but she forced herself to consider The Spine’s question seriously.

‘It’s hard to tell,’ she admitted. ‘My body feels like it could do anything and so does my mind. I think most of that’s the extra power. But I think, even if I’m not okay now, I will be soon.’ She laughed and twirled on the spot. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘But I do. I can’t help it.’

Another shiver ran through Piston’s chassis, but before she could pin it down, a question had risen in her mind.

‘How did your date go on Monday? Did you clear everything up with Daphne?’

She watched that odd combination of unhappiness and relief come back into his face and wished she hadn’t said anything.

‘She broke up with me. It was all going so well and then… You remember I told you about the drunk girl, the one who called me – Exhaust Pipe?’ The break in his voice was barely perceptible, but Piston heard it all the same. She nodded.

‘Well, I accidentally blew steam at Daph again and she got annoyed and then this girl started talking really loudly about us and… everything went downhill from there.’

 

Piston didn’t say anything, just looked at him and he found himself telling her everything that Daphne had said, about Brianna’s attempts to kiss him and then Katja’s timely intervention.

‘She seems nice, this Katja,’ Piston commented.

‘Yeah, she is. Well, _nice_ is sort of the wrong word. She knows her own mind. She’s tough and she’s honest. I like her.’ Was it more than that? He wasn’t sure yet, but for some reason that didn’t bother him the way it had with Daphne. Katja had been upfront, not only about her attraction for him, but the fact that she preferred open relationships. And that meant that for the first time in a long time, The Spine could relax. He didn’t have to worry about how deep his feelings went for her, he could just enjoy the spark they’d had. Best of all, he could be himself around her. _Katja_ thought it was cool when he issued steam or drank oil. Maybe one day he could tell her about the snake thing.

‘Good for you,’ Piston said, beaming and only then did he realised he’d said all of this out loud. ‘You deserve this, Spine.’

‘Do I?’

‘Of course. You’re always thinking of other people and never yourself. It’s about time you got to relax.’ Her smile broadened and then she danced off down the corridor, eyes glowing like a pair of emerald twin suns. He watched her for a moment and then followed. The Spine knew all too well the damage that an overexcited, unsupervised robot could do.

 

‘Oh, Piston!’

‘Sorry!’

‘How many times do I have to tell you?’

‘I said I’m sorry, Annie. I didn’t mean to.’

‘I know you don’t mean to, but you still _do_ it.’

It was the next day and Piston’s spurt of energy showed no signs of abating. If anything, it had intensified. Rabbit and The Jon had been caught up in the excitement and all of three of them were thoroughly getting on everyone else’s nerves. Even Annie and The Spine, those pillars of patience, were getting ratty and the Peters had locked themselves into their various workshops and refused to come out, even for meals.

‘Why don’t you do something to work all that energy off?’ Annie asked at last, exasperatedly as Piston tried to disentangle her hair from the curtain rail. It would have been much easier if her hair was a wig, but Piston’s creators had implanted the strands in tiny holes in her metal scalp and that made it extremely hard for her to keep the strands slack enough to unwind.

‘How on earth did you even get up there?’

‘I’m not sure. I just wondered what the room looked like from further up. And then here I was.’

‘Doesn’t that hurt?’ Annie asked, wincing as Piston tugged particularly hard at an ebony lock.

‘No.’

Rabbit came in at that moment.

‘Piston, where are you? We’re gonna play-’ He broke off and stared at the brass girl, who was only keeping herself up by bracing her feet on the walls. Annie suspected she would need to call in a plasterer later. Then Rabbit burst into peals of laughter, clutched at the doorframe to support himself and fell over when a chunk came off in his hand. That set Piston off, whose shrieks of mirth soon became punctuated with apparently random shouts. The Jon appeared, demanding to know what had happened, fell over Rabbit and dented the skirting board with his chin. Casting off all attempts to keep her head, Annie yelled

‘ _SPINE!’_

He came sedately in, took one look at the mess of robots and heaved a deep sigh. A brief smile flickered across his face, but a second later he was the stern older brother. Annie often wondered how he had become so good at that role when Rabbit was the oldest. The Spine hauled both Rabbit and the Jon to their feet and chivvied them out the door. Then he reached up and, without apparent difficulty, worked Piston’s hair loose. She dropped down from the wall with a heavy thud.

‘Thanks, Spine!’ she said and made to leave. But The Spine caught her gently by the arm. He said nothing out loud, but Annie suspected he was talking to her across the Wi-Fi the way the robots often did.

Whatever he said made Piston droop. She looked distinctly unhappy, but she nodded at him and then turned dejectedly away. Then she stopped, because The Spine still hadn’t let go of her arm. Annie saw their eyes meet, knew a burning curiosity to find out what they were saying, but quashed it firmly. Whatever it was, it was between them.

Piston straightened up again, her face serious, but there was a rhythmical, metallic chink as her fingers tapped together, her restlessness a symptom of her hyperactive core.

 

There had to be something she could do to ‘work off’ her energy, as Annie had put it, something that wasn’t destructive. The Spine’s telling off hadn’t been harsh, but it had hurt her nonetheless.

_You say you can think faster, so you actually need to do so,_ he had said silently. _Use your head and decide before you do something whether you should or not. You know this. It’s even more important when you’re like this or you could end up doing real damage._ She had tried to turn away, but he had held her fast. _I’m only saying this because I don’t want to see you hurt yourself. Look what happened the other week when you were down. These ‘ups’ could be just as dangerous. Look, I’ve asked Harriet to come up to the Manor this evening, so you’ll get your first violin lesson tonight. Is that all right?_

Piston paced back and forth across the lawn, unable to stop herself fidgeting. She didn’t like remembering that conversation from just a few minutes ago, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself replaying it. Why had The Spine’s words disappointed her so much? It was like being called a child and although she accepted that she was in many ways, she still didn’t feel comfortable with The Spine thinking of her like that. She could look after herself.

_Oh, don’t be silly,_ she chastised herself. _When my core’s acting up like this, I_ need _watching. Like he said, I almost slipped away when it sputtered last time._

It was at that point that she noticed her feet were making a trench in the lawn, so she hastily began filling it back in and patting down the soil. Of course, no one would miss the stripe of freshly-dug earth, but the vegetation wasn’t exactly lush out here under the relentless sun.

As she straightened back up, she saw the girl. She was standing on the rise next to the house, looking out over the city. She was very pale and her powder-blue dress looked like something out of Harriet’s shop. Piston wondered who she was and began climbing the hill herself to get a better look at her.

‘H-hello?’ she called nervously when she was close enough.

The girl started, as though she hadn’t heard her coming, although she could hardly have missed Piston’s heavy footsteps. When she didn’t say anything, but simply gazed at Piston, the brass girl said

‘I’m Piston. What’s your name?’

‘A-Adelaide. Miss Adelaide Shaw.’

‘So, what are you doing here?’ Piston asked when Adelaide didn’t volunteer any more information.

‘Just looking at San Diego.’ This seemed a perfectly reasonable response to Piston, who had not yet come across the words ‘private property’ and ‘trespass’.

They both contemplated the sprawling grey and yellow city for a time and the Adelaide asked shyly.

‘Forgive me, but… you are an automaton?’

‘Yeah. I’m made of brass.’

‘And you are English?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have always dreamed of living in England,’ the girl admitted. ‘Papa thought that was wrong, because our ancestors fought to get away from the British. But one day I want to go there and see the country that founded such a great empire.’

Most of this went straight over Piston’s head, as she didn’t yet know much history, so she merely nodded and made an agreeing sort of noise. Neither did this strike her as a particularly odd conversation to be having. Walter Manor was always odd. If it ever stopped being so, the entire building would probably collapse and Piston hadn’t spoken much to ordinary people either. But she liked talking to Adelaide. The girl’s presence was soothing. In an odd way, it seemed to drain off Piston’s excess energy, leaving her less restless.

‘So what is England like?’

‘Erm…’ Piston stalled, wondering how best to answer. The question unsettled her, confronting her yet again with everything she had done there and everything that had been done to her. ‘It’s greener than this, even in London. They have big parks full of trees and water.’ She had a vague memory of seeing green spaces as she had been flown over the city, but she had also looked it up on the Internet.

‘We have parks here, too and greenery’

‘Yes, but… it’s green _er_ in England. It’s not as hot. And it rains. All the time.’

‘All the time?’ Adelaide looked startled.

‘Well, when I went outside it was raining and everyone says it rains a lot there.’

‘You speak as if you never go outside,’ Adelaide said thoughtfully.

‘I only went outside once in England. Before that, I was always in a house.’

‘What was the house like?’

‘Smaller than some of the places here. A lot smaller than Walter Manor.’

 

They carried on talking for several hours and Piston never thought to ask Adelaide where she lived or how she had got here. The human girl was shyly fascinated by the brass one and Piston found the attention quite flattering. As they both grew easier in each other’s company, they both forgot their awkwardness.

‘There are four of us,’ she told Adelaide in answer to the girl’s question. ‘Me, Rabbit, The Jon and The Spine.’ She found herself smiling for no reason at all.

‘And they are all automatons? Are they made of brass too? And are they English?’

‘Yes, only The Jon is and no, I’m the only English one. Rabbit’s made from copper and The Spine is titanium.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a really, really hard metal and it’s silver.’ She was smiling to herself again.

‘Is this ‘Spine’ your beau?’ Adelaide asked.

‘My what?’

‘Your beau, your suitor. One who loves you.’

Piston felt steam begin to build up and let it hastily out of her cheek vents.

‘No! What gave you that idea?’

Adelaide was grinning now.

‘Are you sure? Every time you mention him, you smile.’

‘No I don’t! And he’s not my boyfriend. I don’t love anyone.’ An odd, searing sensation shot through her circuits from her core and her breath caught in her bellows. She had said the words casually and yet they _hurt_ her. She didn’t understand. Why should it be painful to admit that she didn’t love anyone? She didn’t drive a car, but that caused her no discomfort. Why was love any different? It was just an emotion, wasn’t it?

‘Don’t worry,’ Adelaide said. She was still smiling knowingly. ‘I’m sure he’ll come to realise in time.’

Piston made an impatient noise and Adelaide threw back her head and laughed.

 

‘Where’s P-P-Piston?’

‘Rabbit, I’ve told you, you two are just too much trouble together. I’m not going to tell you where she is.’

Rabbit pouted.

‘Y-y-you shouldn’t be so mean to your big brother!’

‘You’ll get over it, Rabbit.’

Rabbit blew a loud raspberry and then stalked off up the stairs, calling Piston’s name.

The Spine wiped the specks of Rabbit’s oil off of his face and went to look for Piston himself. He actually had no idea where she was and he had no intention of allowing Rabbit to find her first. The damage would be unthinkable.

Just as he passed the sitting-room window, he saw a flash of bright light: the sun glinting off a familiar, curvaceous figure. He stood watching Piston for a few moments, content to let things be while he could still hear Rabbit searching for her upstairs. And then he realised that there was something odd about the scene. Piston was standing casually on the rise, her mouth was opening and closing and every so often a brass hand unfolded itself in gesticulation. She was talking to someone. But there was no one else there.


	21. Soul Music

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is in memory of Terry Pratchett, because I wrote it back in March, about a week after the anniversary of his death. There's a slightly oblique reference to Wyrd Sisters in here if you can find it.
> 
> I've also (I think) worked out how I'm going to end it.That's not to say that the end is anywhere insight just yet, but now my exams are over and I've started writing again, the chapters will hopefully be a bit more focused.

The Jon had been right. Piston did indeed have a natural talent for the violin. In fact, she picked it up so quickly it was rather alarming. Aided, no doubt, but the excess output of her power core, she got as far in her first two hours with Harriet as most students would have done in two months. Of course, all the robots learned fast. It was hard not to with almost perfect memories. Once something had been accomplished for the first time, that memory meant it could be replicated whenever desired. So Piston only needed to be shown once how to care for her violin and bow, when to apply rosin and how much to use and the number of squeaks and missed notes declined noticeably during that first lesson. Most of the household could attest to this, not because Piston was playing loudly, but because they were all eavesdropping and pretending not to. At least, Annie, the Peters and The Spine were pretending not to, but Rabbit was standing as close to the doorway of the living room as he could without being spotted and The Jon was periodically jumping up and down and punching the air, an expression of glee on his face that veered between the smug and the manic. Annie was lucky in that her own study was right next to the living room, which meant all she had to do was drag a chair close to the wall and pick up her knitting. Her husband and son were apparently chatting to her, but very little was actually being said and whenever the violin squeaked or sang out on a particularly sweet note, the clicking needles stopped and all eyes turned towards the wall.

 

The Spine was sitting on the stairs on his own, the notes drifting towards him through the empty doorway of the living room. He was fighting a powerful urge to go and watch Piston play, but he didn’t want to put her off. He sat with his head bowed, ignoring the scuffling noises of Rabbit and The Jon’s not-so-subtle attempts to listen in and concentrated instead on the music. Because now it really was becoming music. Harriet had taught her a couple of basic tunes and insisted she repeat them over and over until she got them right. Now ‘Au Clair de la Lune’ was filling the manor and The Spine’s core breathed with a sort of sweet ache. Closing his photoreceptors, he let the music wash over him. When was the last time he had simply listened to music? Normally he was trying to write it, rehearse it, or perform it in front of hundreds of people. This melody was pure and uncomplicated and he didn’t have to think about it. He could just let himself feel how beautiful it was. And then it stopped. He could hear Harriet’s voice praising and Piston’s excited reply. In fact, she was so excited, she shouted

‘Rootless!’

But Harriet carried on speaking as though nothing unusual had happened and The Spine was relieved to hear that Piston didn’t shout again. He stood up as Harriet came out of the living room and thanked her.

‘Don’t,’ she said, waving his words away. ‘It’s a pleasure to teach someone who learns so quickly. I’ll come back this time next week, if that’s okay. As long as she practices at least every other day.’

‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem,’ The Spine smiled. ‘We won’t be here next week, though. We’ve got a show. Which reminds me, I’d better tell Piston. Thanks again, Harriet.’

Harriet left, refusing to let The Spine pay her for her time, and drove off in her little red Mini.

The Spine waved and then closed the door and went into the living room. Rabbit and The Jon had joined hands and were dancing in a circle around Piston, who was giggling, the violin now packed carefully away in its case. He leaned on the doorframe and watched them, a grin stealing across his angular features.

Piston began shouting again, but everyone followed Harriet’s example and ignored it this time. Although she clearly wasn’t comfortable with her loss of control over her own voice, she had too much energy to calm herself down. The Spine watched a frown appear on her face for a moment, but then Rabbit stuck his tongue out at her and she giggled and shouted again. After that, she seemed to accept that it was going to happen and gradually the shouting died away, though Piston was still laughing. He felt another smile spread across his face plate as he leant on the door frame, watching them play, his brothers and… what was Piston? A sister? No, that wasn’t right. She was a sister to Rabbit and The Jon of course, but not to him. That didn’t make sense: if she was their sister, she should be his, too. But no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn’t think of her that way. She was… more than that? But he got no further with that thought, because the dancing robots lost their balance and cannoned into him. The entire house shook as they crashed to the ground with the sort of noise generally associated with the immanent destruction of the world. The Spine found himself pinned to the floor; strong as he was, even he couldn’t shift three robots at the same time. Rabbit and The Jon were lying on his arms and Piston was sprawled across his chest, grinning up at him. He realised he was still smiling too. Ordinarily, being knocked over by his brothers irritated him, but even now, when he was encased in a sort of metal straitjacket, all he felt was happiness. He looked deep into Piston’s laughing eyes and wondered why.

 

‘You’re… leaving?’ Some unpleasant feeling uncoiled itself inside her, as though a salamander had nested in the bottom of her boiler and was becoming restless.

‘It’s only for a few days. Just long enough to get to Wyoming and back. We’ll be home before you know it.’

But his words didn’t reassure Piston. She tried to hide it, but even with her power levels now dropping back to normal, she could tell it hadn’t worked.

The Spine sighed out a small breath of steam and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

‘You’ll be okay. You survived without us before, right? And it’ll be much better this time. If I know Annie, she’ll keep you so busy you won’t have time to think about anything, let alone miss us.’

Piston swallowed the excess oil from her throat lubricators and nodded. The Spine was, as ever, right. She could do this.

 

The Spine was right about Annie as well. No sooner had Piston finished waving goodbye to the band, than the older lady had taken a firm grip on Piston’s brass arm and towed her off around the house.

‘You can help me in the garden, dear. I’m finding all the digging and such a bit harder these days, but I’m sure it’ll be no problem for you at all.’

The automaton soon found herself halfway down a row of half-grown runner beans with a hoe in one hand, a watering can in the other and the realisation that gardening was much harder work than she would had guessed. Annie did indeed keep her so busy that Piston had very little time to feel upset or lonely, although there were moments when she asked a question and was momentarily surprised when it wasn’t The Spine who answered, as it usually was. But she learnt how to care for a variety of plants and Annie described in great detail the differences between a normal garden and the one here at Walter Manor. Apparently, a normal garden didn’t have flowers that turned to face anyone nearby, a rockery that sidled away if you stared at it for too long and a shrubbery that doubled as a guard-dog. Normal gardens, thought Piston, sounded quite boring.

‘Why isn’t this garden normal?’ she asked Annie as she tugged a thistle out of the hard earth. She was wearing gardening gloves because although the spikes didn’t hurt her, she had discovered they had a distressing tendency to get caught in the joints of her fingers and then she had to sit there for a quarter of an hour while Annie picked them out again.

‘For the same reasons that everything in this house is abnormal,’ Annie said now, smiling. ‘Part of it’s all the blue matter around. You know, we’re the only people in the whole world who can grow blue roses? But I think it’s mostly just that the Walter family has always been strange and like attracts like. Oh, for God’s sake, leave her alone!’

The shrubbery stopped trying to herd Piston away from the marigolds and slouched away, its foliage looking distinctly disappointed.

‘Why does it keep doing that?’ Piston inquired as she heaved herself out of the wheelbarrow for the third time and began fishing bits of twig and leaf out of her hair.

‘I don’t know. It never seems to mind The Jon when he comes out here.’

‘Oh. Maybe I’m just not good with plants.’

Annie frowned.

‘It’s almost as though it sees you as a threat, but I don’t know why it would.’

‘C-could it be my core?’ Piston asked hesitantly, not sure she really wanted to know the answer. Everything seemed to come back to her core, which as it was the essence of her being, made sense, but wasn’t always very comfortable when she considered what green matter had done to the operators of Becile’s elephants. Would it have an effect on the plants? And if it did, would that mean the humans of the house were at risk?

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Annie admitted, not sounding at all concerned. Then she looked up and her blue eyes seemed to pierce right through to Piston’s… soul? ‘What’s eating you?’

Knowing she wouldn’t be able to hide them from Annie, she confessed her fears.

Annie said nothing to start with but patted her hand on the bench beside her. When Piston didn’t move, she said ‘Come and sit down.’

Piston obeyed. She sank onto the red varnished planks, chewing on the black rubber of her bottom lip. Annie placed a hand comfortingly on her knee and looked steadily into her face.

‘Piston, it’s not just green matter that affects things. Peter I had blue hair because of all the time he spent building the robots and if Norman hadn’t been mucking around with… well, blue matter made him what he is today. It can be just as dangerous as green in the wrong hands. If we weren’t prepared to run the risks of living with blue matter, we wouldn’t be here, Piston, trust me. The risks might be different with green matter, but they aren’t any worse.’

But Piston thought once more about The Spine’s shared memory of the zombified operators of the copper elephants and although she appreciated Annie’s attempts at reassurance, she didn’t believe them.

 

When the sun was descending, leaving fiery stains across the velvet backdrop of the sky, they finally finished in the garden and Piston escaped from Annie’s well-meaning clutches into her room, where she opened her violin case and ran reverential fingers across the polished ebony. She ran the rosin across the bow strings and then ever so gently lifted the instrument out of its bed and set it to her shoulder. She began with the simple exercises Harriet had given her, repeating them until she could perform them seamlessly. Then she played each of the tunes she had been taught through once and then… then she paused. Because more than anything else, at this moment she wanted to play and keep on playing for as long as she could, but she simply didn’t know enough music to do so. Piston found herself staring out of the window, which just so happened to overlook the drive, the bow hanging limply in her right hand, the neck of the violin dangling from her left. The Spine, and the others too of course, she added hastily, would be coming back up that drive in a few days. But that seemed so long away! Just look how slowly today had gone, even with all the jobs Annie had found for her. She sniffed and blinked angrily as oil threatened to overflow from her optics. She was being ridiculous. The Spine was right, she had survived without them before and she could do so now. Of course, there was a difference between being able to do something and wanting to do it. Was it just his kindness that made her so anxious to see The Spine again? But if it was, why didn’t she miss the others just as much? Oh, she wanted to see Rabbit and The Jon again, she couldn’t wait to, but all she felt when she thought of them was excitement and anticipation for their return. With The Spine there was an added measure of melancholy that he wasn’t here right _now_. So wrapped up in these thoughts was she, that she barely noticed the slight weight of the violin now once again on her shoulder and the movement of her hand as it positioned the bow delicately over the strings. Piston found herself playing. It wasn’t a tune as such: there were still bad notes here and there and she hardly ever repeated a phrase, but she drank the sound in, revelling in the knowledge that _she_ was causing it. Entranced, she began to sway with the melody and an uncomfortable feeling she had had all day began to ease, as though the wires around her core had knotted themselves up and were only now unravelling. She could no longer stem the tears and did not even try, letting them fall gently from her photoreceptors to run under her chin and spatter on the floor, finding release in them. Sorrow and loneliness and hope flowed through her circuits and oil lines, down her arms, into the very wood, steel and horsehair of the violin and its bow and spilled out into the air where they kissed.

 

‘Mom? Are you all right?’ Peter peered anxiously at his mother. She was crying and he could barely remember the last time he had seen that happen.

‘Listen, Peter, just listen.’ She pointed upwards at the ceiling. He fell silent and caught the sound of music. He strained to hear more. The sound was coming from a violin, Piston’s violin. Peter kept listening, completely unaware of the look of melancholy rapture on his face, until his mother drew him to her in a cradling embrace and he found that he, too, was weeping.


	22. Pride and Prejudice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies and Happy Father's Day! It's time for another update, quite a long one this time and I'm giving you a trigger warning for back-alley violence. This chapter is really the reason this story has the 'Graphic Description' tag. Turned out not to be quite so graphic as I thought, but I'll warn you just in case.  
> Just a couple of notes:  
> 1\. I think I'm right in that on American buses you pull a cord to stop it? I had to look that up. It's so weird. It wasn't until I'd written the bus bit that it occurred to me that not everyone around the world would press a button to stop the bus. So fan fic is officially educational! It teaches you about other cultures.  
> 2\. 'Doing porridge', for those of you who may not have come across the phrase before, means doing time in prison. I wasn't sure whether it was just an English phrase, so I though I'd better mention that.  
> Let me know if this chapter works. I'm really hoping it does, but I haven't written an awful lot of this sort of thing before.

The next two months were very busy. The robots had a series of shows coming up and had to go back to their normal routine of song-writing and rehearsal. Peter V had discovered a new chemical which he was positive would change the way paperclip production worked forever and his son was involved in a very serious piece of research that was apparently capable of conducting itself, as he never seemed to be in any of his workshops or studies at all these days. Annie was running around like a blue-arsed fly on her self-appointed mission in damage control and Piston was alternating between violin practice and expanding her knowledge of the outside world through either the Internet or the manor’s extensive library. As both these tasks were quite likely to absorb for her for the entire day, everyone saw much less of Piston than they had hitherto aside from the first week after she had arrived when she had been laid out on Peter VI’s workbench. In fact, apart from when they returned from that first show, The Spine hardly saw her at all.

The look on her face when she saw they had returned had alarmed him. It was as though she hadn’t believed they were coming back until she had actually seen them. The sheer amount of relief that had blazed in her optics had sparked an equal measure of guilt deep in The Spine’s breast where his core swirled and pulsed, so very nearly human and yet so utterly mechanical. Though, if he was honest with himself, hadn’t he been feeling guilty the entire time they had been gone? Barely had their van pulled out of the drive than he had been plagued with doubts as to the wisdom of leaving Piston behind. None of them could have stayed behind, of course, and it simply wasn’t safe to take Piston on the road with them. There were still too many angry people out there, looking for blame in all the wrong places. But he had still hated leaving her alone. She hadn’t been truly alone, because the rest of the Walters were with her, but The Spine knew that was different to having robots for company. And he had to admit, part of him was being purely selfish and just wanted to take Piston with them because he liked being around her. Liked it very much, in fact.

 

Such were The Spine’s thoughts as they turned onto the interstate and picked up speed, heading for Idaho. Once again, he was leaving Piston behind and was unhappy about it. So unhappy, he realised, that he wasn’t concentrating properly on what he was doing and as he was the one driving the van, that wasn’t an ideal situation. Annoyed with himself, The Spine tried to shake off his circular train of thought and keep his mind on the road. But despite his best efforts, the image of a certain black-haired, brass-skinned, curvaceous robot in a black corset kept drifting across his vision, her face a painful mixture of relief and loneliness.

 

But there were bright spots, like the fact that the flood of poisonous, anonymous letters began to slow and then eventually died away all together and the robots, particularly The Spine while he was out with Katja, noticed that the odd looks and muttered comments were beginning to die away.

In fact, the air in the city seemed to have cleared so much that when Harriet’s car broke down two months after Piston’s first lesson, Annie thought it would be all right if she ran Piston into town and let her make her own way back when the lesson was over. There was just one, small problem.

‘But Piston, how are you going to get back if you don’t have a map?’ Peter was saying, for the fourteenth time. ‘You won’t know where to go! Look, QWERTY and I can help you. We’ll find a decent one on the Internet and you can download it and-’

‘No.’

‘But Piston,’ Annie started.

‘No.’

‘Now look,’ Peter V began.

‘No.’

‘Pi-’

‘No.’

‘ _Will you for fuck’s sake stop saying ‘no’_?’ Peter VI shouted, losing all self-control.

‘Peter!’

‘Sorry, Mom…’

‘Piston, will you please just consider-’

‘No. I’m not downloading a map.’

‘Fine!’ Annie snapped, her own patience at breaking point with the recalcitrant robot. ‘Don’t go then!’

The three humans turned away, leaving a slightly hurt brass automaton leaning against the stair post.

 

‘What’s up, Annie? Is everything okay?’

‘Yeah, Spine. I just wanted your advice.’ Even through the muffled static of the phone line, he could tell she sounded strained. ‘Harriet can’t get here today and I thought I could drop Piston down there and she could make her way back, because I’m meeting the girls tonight, but we can’t get her to download a map and if she doesn’t, how is she going to find her way back?’

The Spine opened his mouth, but Annie carried on

‘So I really wanted to ask you what you thought we could do. I keep thinking I know how to handle her and then she surprises me and suddenly I’m not sure again. She’s so like you three in some ways and in others she completely different.’

‘Did she say why she didn’t want to download a map?’ The Spine said quickly when she paused for breath again.

‘…No, I don’t think so.’

‘Did you ask her why?’ he asked, although he thought he knew the answer.

There was a short pause.

‘No. Darn it!’

‘And is there any reason you can’t give her a hard copy?’

‘No. There isn’t. Why didn’t I think of this?’

‘It’s all right, Annie. You’re just used to being around us, to there not necessarily _being_ a reason behind what we do or don’t do.’

‘Well, thanks, Spine. And good luck for tonight!’

‘Cheers, Annie. And good luck to Piston. Let me know how she gets on.’

The Spine put his phone away, a twinge of sadness in him that he wasn’t going to be there for Piston’s first lone foray into the outside world.

‘Can you give me a hand, Spine?’

He turned and went back to helping set the lighting up for show.

 

‘And the bus’ll take you to _here_ and then it’s only a ten-minute walk and up the hill, okay? Got all that?’

Piston nodded eagerly. She folded the map up very carefully and tucked it into her coat pocket, along with the purse Annie had given her to pay for the bus fare.

‘There’s a bit extra in there, just for emergencies. Anything happens, you get a taxi back and if you don’t have enough money, we can settle the difference up here, right? Come on, let’s get you to Harriet’s.’

 

Annie’s Beetle moseyed its way out of the drive and down the hill into the city. Unhappily, they had caught the tail-end of the rush-hour and every light they came to was red, so they were somewhat late and Annie barely had time to deposit Piston in Harriet’s flat before hurrying off to meet her friends.

‘Well don’t stand around, girl, come in,’ Harriet said, beckoning.

Piston obeyed and found herself in a sitting-room full of clocks, dragons, dressmaker’s dummies in varying states of disarray and a TV which was doing battle with a sewing machine for table space and losing badly.

‘What are they for?’ Piston asked, pointing at the dummies.

‘To make sure the clothes will fit when I make them.’

‘You make the clothes you sell in your shop?’ Piston was deeply impressed. She had no idea how you went about making clothes, but the ones Harriet sold, with all their ruffles and tucks and lace must be very tricky to make indeed.

‘Well, no. I make some of them, but mostly I sell other people’s work. Do you want any water?’ Harriet had clearly had robot visitors before.

Piston considered. Her boiler was feeling a little empty.

‘Yes please.’

‘Take a seat. I’ll be back in a second.’

Piston didn’t sit down immediately. The room was just far too interesting. It was very like Harriet’s shop, except that the items here clearly weren’t on sale. Which was rather a pity, because it was all so beautiful, even if there was rather a lot of clutter. There were a great number of little statues: dragons, fairies, wolves and ravens perched on every available surface and quite a few were placed where Piston would not have thought there could be a surface, available or otherwise. What little wall-space there was, that wasn’t taken up with bookshelves, was covered in smoky paintings of curious vehicles and contraptions. She recognised the trains, but the oval things floating in the sky were completely unknown to her. She decided she liked the pictures, for all their strangeness. Their subjects seemed to be made primarily of brass and that meant she had something in common with them. Besides, it was the sort of weirdness that reminded her of the Walters, a good, interesting, fun sort of peculiarity.

Then she fell to looking at Harriet’s books, peering at them around the half-dressed fairies reclining against jewel-coloured dragons. She didn’t recognise very many of the names; Robert Graves and James Frazer were completely unknown to her, although she thought she had heard of Jules Verne. The Spine had mentioned him as an author she might like before they left for their latest show. Although, he had added, she might find the language a bit difficult at the moment. Verne’s books looked a lot more grown up than the ones she was reading currently. They probably didn't have helpful pictures.

‘You’re welcome to borrow something, if you like.’

Piston jumped. She hadn’t heard Harriet come back, bearing coffee and a glass of water. She shook her head.

‘I don’t think I could read any of these yet.’

‘And what sort of attitude is that?’ Harriet asked impatiently, as she put the glass of water down on the only spare bit of the side table and then balanced the mug precariously on the coils of the dragon that was taking up most of the space. ‘I’ve been challenging you with the violin and nothing’s stumped you for more than an hour. You’re the quickest study I’ve ever had, even without that power surge you had the first time.’ She strode across to join Piston and began scanning the shelves too. ‘Here,’ she said, pulling a slim black book out and pressing it into Piston’s hands. ‘I’m sure you’ll like it.’

‘…'Dracula’?’

‘Trust me. And now, play me _L’homme armé_ , like we did last week.’

Piston put the book down and opened her violin case where it lay on the sofa. She took it up and began to tune it. Although she had done so before she had left the house, she knew Harriet would take her to task for not checking that everything was okay with the instrument before playing. She saw Harriet nod almost imperceptibly when she had finished and then Piston felt her lips curve in an involuntary smile of anticipation as she set the bow to the strings.

 

‘Was that okay?’

Harriet came out of her reverie to find Piston’s odd green eyes blinking anxiously at her.

‘What?’

‘Was that okay?’

Harriet sighed.

‘Piston, it was perfect. Give it another month and you’ll pass Grade 1 easily.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘They don’t do it over here, but in Britain they have standardised levels for music. I find it easier to teach that way. It gives the student a better idea of how they’re progressing. Even the best of my other students took six months to get to Grade 1. Keep on like this and you’ll have done it in half that time.’

The look of surprise Piston’s face made her chuckle.

‘I knew I was learning fast, but I didn’t realise…’

‘That you were learning _that_ fast?’ Harriet beamed at Piston. ‘I’m really proud of you, Piston. And I’m sure your family is too.’ She glanced at one of her fourteen clocks. ‘My God, is that really the time? You’d better be getting back or they’ll be wondering where you are. You’re all right getting home, aren’t you?’ She helped Piston collect her bits and pieces, made sure she knew which bus to catch and where to get off and then opened the door for her. On an impulse, she hugged the brass girl tightly. ‘Well done, honey,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll see you next week. Give my love to everyone.’ She could say that now Piston had learnt what an idiom was. As the automaton hurried down the stairs, Harriet waved goodbye, a broad smile still on her face. She closed the door and went to make another cup of coffee, pride at her robotic prodigy humming warmly in her chest as though she, too, had a green matter power core.

 

The bus was late, of course. Annie had warned her about this, so Piston wasn’t too worried. But it was vaguely uncomfortable, waiting at the bus stop in the yellow shadows from the sodium lights. She kept wondering whether passers-by realised she was a robot and if they did, did they know she was the one from London? Did they suspect her? Or did they think she was one of the band? The bus came at last and she hurried on, glad to get in from the dim, slightly forbidding streets. But there were several other people on the bus, not to mention the driver, and they all stared at her as she sat down. What with her optics glowing brilliantly, the lights glinting off her face plates and the buckled corset she was wearing, it would have taken a blind man not to notice she wasn’t human and even then he could probably have heard the hissing of her boiler. She squashed herself up against the window and looked out through the glass, trying not to see the inquisitive stares of the other passengers, but it was so dark outside and so bright on the bus, that all she could see were reflections. All her excitement at Harriet’s pronouncement had evaporated as though it had never been and seeping into the hole it had left was a sickening mixture of anxiety and suspicion. Piston remembered The Spine’s story about RAF Boxted and the way the airmen had tormented poor Jon and that dreadful girl, Brianna, whose fault it had been that Daphne and The Spine were no longer together. Not, Piston thought, that Daphne had been very good for him. He was much happier, she knew, now that he was with Katja. But did she really make The Spine –

With a start, Piston realised the bus was coming up to her stop. She pulled the cord and stood up, stabilisers working harder to keep her balanced as they came to a stop. She got out and as the bus grumbled off, she pulled the map out of her pocket. Looking at it now, Piston felt a little guilty that she been so stubborn with Annie and Peter. But the last time she had downloaded a map, it had not been voluntary and she had been forced to follow the route branded into her mind, following it not only to her own destruction but that of thousands of others. In her hands was another map, but she could choose to follow this one or not, there was no imperative. This one was safe.

 _I don’t want to follow it,_ she decided, looking at the route that Annie had marked for her in black ink. _Why should I go all the way round here, when taking these little streets between the houses would be so much quicker? And I’m late. If I take the shortcut, I’ll stop them worrying._ She made a careful note of the new route and then set off, somehow feeling both emboldened and nervous. It felt good to be deciding this for herself, but that came with the responsibility to make the right choice.

 

Big Terry was fed up. The cops had broken up his protection racket for the third time that year, his best friend was now doing porridge and to top it off, his archenemy hadn’t even had to decency to show up at his customary watering-hole so that Big Terry’s boys could bash his skull in. Some people simply weren’t considerate. When they had been waiting over an hour and it was clear Schmidt wasn’t going to show, Terry had contented himself with threatening the barman with a bit of piping, just to show he didn’t care that he was in Schmidt’s territory, and they had all gone over to their own favourite haunt on the outskirts of town, not far from the big hill where all the robots lived.

‘Come on, Big T,’ Jackson had said over their fourth pint. ‘It’s not so bad. Crash’ll be out soon and it won’t take us long to set everything up again!’ He clapped Terry jovially on the shoulder and then snatched his hand back when Terry glared at him. It would never do for his boys to become _too_ familiar with him. They were a gang and that meant they were family, but when it all came down to it, _he_ was in charge and they should never be allowed to forget that. 

A distraction, that was what they needed, Big Terry thought as they left the bar, rather the worse for wear. The boys needed something to work their energy off on, before they all got to wondering if it was worth following a guy who couldn’t keep his racket safe. Before one of them decided he would make a much better leader than Big Terry. So as they prowled the dark streets, Terry was on the lookout for anything they might serve. He was more sober than the others, being both naturally harder-headed and possessing enough intelligence not to let any sign of weakness be seen. A rich couple in a broken-down car, that was what they needed. Something quick and easy with a nice pay-off that would boost the boys’ wavering pride and let them blow off steam.

 _In fact,_ he thought moodily, when millionaires with car trouble completely failed to put in a appearance. _Just about anything would do. Shit, even an old granny would provide some sort of entertainment._ That thought made him sigh. Was that what they were reduced to? Beating up old ladies for the few cents their pensions would yield? And then he saw the girl and it seemed like his prayers were answered.

 

Piston was making good time. These small streets that ran between the backs of the houses were fairly empty, apart from some rubbish bags and the occasional drunk, and she found she could get along quite quickly. If she wasn’t mistaken, she would be able to make up all the time she had lost waiting for the bus. It felt so good knowing that, knowing she had made a good, sensible decision that would save the Walters worrying.

At least, she thought it had been a good decision to cut through the alleyways, right up until the point a huge brute of a man stepped out of a side street and demanded her phone and her money.

‘No!’ Piston said, a little surprised, and carried on walking.

The big man grabbed her arm and made as if to fling her against the wall, but only succeeded in making her overbalance towards him. They both fell, her considerable weight nearly crushing him and he bellowed a word that would have made even Peter blush.

‘Sorry,’ Piston said, scrambling up. She didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t like it and she though it best to get back to the main road as fast as possible.

But the man’s friends, whom she hadn’t noticed in the dark, had other ideas. They had surrounded her and when she tried to push gently past them, they tried to shove her away. They didn’t manage it, but she realised that unless she was prepared to hurt them, and hurt them badly, she wasn’t going to get away. She remembered The Spine’s story about RAF Boxted, about how it wasn’t worth hurting humans, even when they hurt you.

The big man had got to his feet, but he was still cursing her in every way he could think of.

‘You’d better give us your stuff now, you bitch! Do that and I might be inclined to overlook what you just did.’

Piston frowned.

‘But I didn’t do anything,’ she pointed out, reasonably. ‘You grabbed me. If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have fallen on you.’ Several pairs of hands shoved her backwards, with much more force this time, until her back collided with the alley wall.

‘Now I’m not gonna ask you again,’ the man growled. ‘Your money and your phone, or we’ll take ‘em from you and maybe something else as well.’

‘I don’t have a phone,’ Piston said, now definitely feeling scared, but still confused as to what was happening. ‘Why do you want it anyway?’

There was silence, broken only by the background roar of the traffic.

‘Are you serious?’ cried one of the shadowy figures. He sounded peeved about something.

‘Of course. Do you want to call someone? I'd be happy to lend you mine if I had one.’

‘You’re being mugged, for fuck’s sake! How can you not understand that?’ His voice was odd. It seemed to stumble a lot.

‘What does that mean?’ It clearly wasn’t something good, but Piston couldn’t be sure how to deal with being ‘mugged’ until she knew what it meant.

‘What are you anyway?’ the leader said. ‘You got these weird glowing eyes and you’re made of-’ He stopped suddenly and then a bright light shone right into Piston’s face, dazzling her for a moment before her photoreceptors adjusted. ‘I don’t believe it!’

‘What ish it, Big T?’ someone else said, slurring his words.

‘She’s a robot!’ He gripped Piston’s chin in huge, beefy fingers. ‘You’re _that_ one, aren’t you? The one who tried to blow up London!’

 

It was like being deluged with ice. Even her hot, thrumming core and her steaming boiler seemed to have gone cold with fear. Someone had recognised her. Someone, judging by his behaviour so far, who wouldn’t understand that she hadn’t wanted to do it and who was quite prepared to deliver what he thought was a fitting punishment. And of course, fear initiated the same involuntary reaction in her that it always did.

As she felt her mouth open, something collided with her stomach. It caused her only a momentary twinge of discomfort, but the perpetrator was now jumping up and down, screaming and clutching at his fist.

‘You dumb ass! It’s made of metal, wha’ did ya think was gonna happen?’ Big T shouted. Then he turned back to Piston, who began to bark uncontrollably.

‘My brother was in London that day. You almost killed my brother, you fucking bitch!’

Piston flinched. No one had ever directed words like that at her, or at least, no one had ever _meant_ them. She broke away from the wall, still barking, but the gang pushed her back again, her eyes lighting up their faces, which were contorted in snarls of anger and glee.

‘Why is she barking?’ one of them asked. They all looked at her, puzzled, scratching their heads.

‘She really is a bitch,’ Big T growled softly. ‘But it doesn’t matter. No one does that to my family.’ She saw a green flash as something in his hand reflected back the light from her optics. ‘No one.’

 

To start with, they could do nothing but scare her. As the least bright member of the group had proved, fists could do very little against a woman made of brass. But then someone found two stout lengths of discarded scaffold. They took it in turns to beat her with them, raining blows on her chassis until her plates were dented and crumpled. At first, they kept her trapped against the wall, but then they made a game of it, taking a perverse delight in sending her careering across the circle to where another man was waiting with his pipe raised like a baseball bat. At each blow, her stabilisers lost efficiency and she found it harder and harder to recover her balance. One particularly heavy blow sent Piston sprawling to the floor, her chest plates so dented that they were pressing on her bellows, and steam bursting from all her joints, scalding two of the gang. Pain was shuddering through her whole body, she was finding it difficult to breathe and she was terrified that one of those blows would crack her power core. The lack of air meant the barking was slowing down, but it also meant she couldn't call for help. Just as she was levering herself to her feet, a pipe came crashing down on her back and she fell again. She had lost track of her violin case, she could only hope that they wouldn’t see the black box against the black night. She couldn’t bear to think what they would do with it.

Another blow fell, on her leg this time, and her knee joint fizzed and crackled. The wires had been torn loose, so now she couldn’t use her right foot at all. Piston was vividly reminded of that day on the roof of Westminster Palace, when she had twisted her foot sliding down the steep tiles.

But this time there were no robots to save her. Even though she knew it was hopeless, that she wasn’t near enough to Walter Manor for anyone to hear her, she found herself screaming out into the void of the ethernet, desperate for it to stop.

_Pleease! Help me!_

 

‘Are you all right, Ferdy?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Are you feeling okay?’

‘Liz, what do you make of this?’ She leaned forward across the restaurant table as he showed her the message on his phone. ‘What do you think it means?’

“Please… Help me’?’

Her phone bleeped and she pulled it out her pocket.

‘Hey, I’ve got one too! Do you think someone’s in trouble?’

‘Have you got one as well?’ asked a girl at the next table. ‘What’s going on?’

All across the room, people were pulling out phones and frowning in puzzlement as the same message smacked them in the eyes. Even as Liz watched, there was another round of bleeps, reverberations and, from the pocket of a very embarrassed housewife, a resounding chorus of _Sex on the Beach_.

 _Someone!! Pleeease!!_ the message ran.

Liz and Ferdy looked at each other.

‘It sounds pretty serious,’ she said. ‘But… who is it? And how did they message everyone?’

Ferdy shook his head and then suddenly he started.

‘Did you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’

‘Listen!’

Liz strained her ears to catch something above all the puzzled muttering and the strident tones of someone who though the whole thing was a distasteful joke on behalf of the waiter. Was that..? Yes! There was muffled shouting and hollering coming from somewhere outside, combined with a clanging noise as though someone had knocked over a dustbin. Ferdy and Liz changed glances and then leapt to their feet. Ferdy hastily threw some notes down onto the table and then they dashed out of the restaurant together, both convinced that something was horribly wrong.

 

The barking had stopped completely now she barely had the breath for it and she couldn’t see very well anymore, either. The glow from her optics had been getting fainter and fainter. Nor was she able to move. It was remarkably like those two days she had spent in the attic at Walter Manor, except that now she knew there was something wrong, had an inkling of what would happen if she grew much weaker. The lengths of pipe had hurt her terribly, but she doubted they could have killed her unless they had managed to smash her core. But the big man’s knife… that was another story. He had been very quick with it. The blade had snaked between her plates, severed wires and oil lines and then skittered away again, only to dance back towards her before she could move. Piston found she could no longer feel very much, not even the soaking wetness of her own oil spilling out across her clothing. Except where there was pain, most of her body was numb. The twisted, frayed ends of wires were sparking and crackling, sending waves of agony coursing up her body, but with the circuit broken, she couldn’t receive signals from below the break point. Piston had known what death was ever since that day on the rooftop, when her core had surged and she had realised what it meant to kill someone. She knew she was facing it again now, with all her gears beginning to seize up through lack of oil and hydraulic fluid and with her boiler getting very low on water. But worst was the blazing heat in her chest. When Big T had recognised her, fear seemed to have made all her temperature monitors malfunction, as though she had been dropped into a chest freezer. But there was nothing the matter with them now and they told her that her core was overheating. Was it her own struggle to keep going, to stay alive that was doing it, or was it simply a result of her injuries? Whatever it was, her core was turning white hot as it flooded her with energy she could no longer use. More and more sparks were spattering out of her dented chassis and her boiler was running dry even faster. The light from her eyes almost gone, Piston waited for death.


	23. As I Lay Dying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Chapter 23 and I've just finished writing 26, so you've almost caught me up. The end is... not yet in sight, but getting closer, now I definitely know how I want to end it. Plenty more story to come still, though.  
> As ever, I hope you guys are still enjoying it. Getting your lovely comments and kudos and my hit counter telling me I have people who read this every week makes it all worthwhile. I would definitely have given up long before this if it weren't for you guys.  
> Oh, there's a bit more graphic description here, but it's not too bad. Just mentioning it to be on the safe side.

‘Look!’

There was just the faintest trace of green light lingering in the alleyway. It was barely enough for them to see the figure sprawled across the alleyway in a dark, sticky pool.

Liz rushed to her side.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course she isn’t- Liz!’

‘What?’

‘She isn’t human!’

‘I know. She must be one those robots, the ones that live up the hill. Steam Powered Okapi or whatever. We’ve gotta help her, Ferdy!’

‘How? Can’t call an ambulance for her, can we?’

‘What about a mechanic? Or it’s the Walter family who live up there, isn’t it? Could we find their number and call them?’

‘What’s going on?’

A small crowd was beginning to gather, most of the them from the restaurant.

Liz stood up.

‘Is anyone here a mechanic? Or does anyone know the Walters, the ones who have all the robots?’

Mutters ran through the crowd.

‘A mechanic?’

‘The Walters?’

‘Is it one of their robots? Has something gone wrong?’

The people pressed forward and gasped as they saw the dented, mutilated heap. Several got their phones out to use as torches. *****  

‘I’m a First Aider!’ someone called. ‘Can I help?’ A short, paunchy man pushed his way through the knot of onlookers and bent down over the robot girl. He sucked his breath in through his teeth. ‘Ssssst! Not good. Anyone got anything I can use as a bandage?’

As everyone began rummaging through their bags and pockets, someone else shouldered through and crouched down next to the First Aider.

‘I know a bit about car engines,’ the young man said. ‘Is that any good?’

The two of them tied off the oil lines that they could get to underneath all the dented plates, working in the light from several phones.

‘Wait!’ a third man cried.

‘What?’ asked several voices, although the First Aider and the mechanic kept working.

‘She’s… She’s that robot from London! The terrorist!’

Everyone fell silent, turning to look at the spread-eagled figure.

‘What are you doing?’ the troublemaker asked the two rescuers. ‘You’re trying to save a terrorist!’

‘Son, I’d be quiet, if I were you,’ the older man said, without even turning round. ‘My granddaughter loves Steam Powered Giraffe and I’ve been to see ‘em a few times with her. I reckon anyone they take in has got to be okay. They’re not the type to hurt anyone and they wouldn’t help was anyone who was.’

‘You can’t trust a bunch of machines!’ sneered the third man. ‘I say we leave her here! Serves her right for doing what she did!’ There were murmurs of agreement among the crowd.

The young man who knew a bit about engines stood up suddenly, his hands curling into fists.

‘Get out of here!’ he shouted. ‘All of you who don’t think it’s worth saving someone’s life! I don’t know if she’s really alive, but I don’t wanna risk assuming she isn’t. I’m not asking you to help, but if you don’t want to, then stay out of our way!’

The troublemaker and a few other malcontents shuffled off, but as Liz looked around, she realised that most people had actually stayed.

‘Someone’s coming to help!’ a voice from the back called suddenly. ‘My brother’s a mechanic and he’s got a truck. He’ll be here in no time and then we can take her up the hill. The Walters’ll be able to fix her up properly, won’t they?’

 

When Annie opened the door and saw at least a dozen people assembled outside, she wondered if someone was throwing another surprise birthday party for her. Her second thought was that Christmas had come round awfully quickly this year and that it was a very brave troop of carol singers who had risked coming up to the Manor.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked and with a sinking heart, she noticed the worried looks in every face.

‘Do you have a girl robot here?’ asked the young woman who had knocked at the door. ‘Black hair, made of brass?’

Annie swallowed. Piston wasn’t back yet and she had been getting very anxious.

‘Yes. Has something happened?’

 

It took six people to carry her in. At the sight of Piston’s battered, broken chassis, Annie had actually screamed and both Peters had come flying out of the front door to see what the matter was. Her husband had turned even paler than normal and he and Annie had clutched at each other for support. Peter VI had swallowed hard, blinked several times and then had broken down into tears.

‘Is she- Is she-’ He couldn’t get the words out.

The stretcher bearers pushed them all aside, desperate to put down Piston’s heavy body, and shuffled into the living room.

‘Wait!’ Peter V said as they went to put her down on the sofa. ‘Through here.’ He showed them into the dining room and they laid her on the table. Then a grey-haired man with a paunch said

‘It’s all right. She’s still alive.’

Peter VI walked shakily over to the table and looked down at what had once been a beautiful, brass-skinned woman.

‘Tools,’ he muttered and began rifling through the drawers in the dresser, throwing spanners and screwdrivers onto the table beside Piston, making enough noise to raise the dead.

Annie tried to pull herself together.

‘Thank you all, so much,’ she said. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’ She led the way back into the living room, now filled with the rest of the crowd and closed the doors to the dining room. She didn’t want to disturb the Peters when they were trying to save Piston’s life.

The crowd all started to talk at once.

‘Please!’ Annie called, throwing up her hands. ‘One at a time!’

The girl who had knocked at the door answered.

‘Well, Ferdy and I were just sitting there, eating, and all of a sudden, he gets a message. Someone asking him for help. Then we realise I’ve got one too and so does everyone else in the restaurant. And Ferdy thought he could hear something, didn’t you honey?’ Ferdy nodded. ‘And we rushed outside to see what was wrong and in the alleyway we found… you know,’ she finished awkwardly.

‘Do you know what happened to her?’ Annie asked, her own voice shaking.

Several people shook their heads.

‘Sorry,’ the girl said ruefully. ‘She must have been beaten up by someone, but they were gone by the time we got there. These guys,’ she pointed. ‘Helped patch her up and this lady phoned her brother to come with his tow-truck. Was that all right?’

Annie threw her arms around the girl and hugged her. And then, fiercely holding back her tears, she turned to the others.

‘Thank you,’ she choked. ‘All of you. You saved her life and you brought her back to us and-’ She gulped and continued. ‘Is there anything we can do to thank you?’

‘Is she really the robot from London?’ asked the young man the girl had pointed out as Piston’s medic.

‘Yes,’ Annie admitted. There was no point in denying it. ‘But she never wanted to hurt anyone. She was forced to do it.’ They might not believe her, but Annie was determined that they hear the truth. ‘So is there anything we can do for you?’

There were murmurs of ‘No, that’s fine’ and ‘Only doing what was right’.

‘Well…’ the girl said and Annie thought she knew what was coming. It always cam e down to money. ‘There is one thing… If we give you our numbers, can you let us know what happens?’ Annie was wrong.

‘Oh! Yes, of course.’ She fetched a pen and paper and as the group began filing out, they scribbled down their names and phone numbers. At last there was only one person still there, the young man.

‘Did you want something else?’ Annie asked, feeling drained and still fraught with worry about Piston.

‘Erm, yeah…’ he said shyly. ‘Are these hers?’ He held up a black violin case and a torn, sodden book.

‘Oh, yes, thank you!’ Annie took the proffered objects. The book was ruined beyond repair and she winced as she set it on the coffee table. Then she flicked open the case, which was now looking distinctly battered and was covered in oil stains. Piston’s oil. The violin lay cradled in its velvet nest, still intact, still perfect. Anne sighed in relief. At least Piston would be able to carry on playing when Peter had fixed her. _If_ he fixed her. She saw again the crumpled, dented plates, the makeshift bandages soaked with oil and hydraulic fluid, the glow in her eyes that was so dim she could barely make it out. Worst of all, Annie recalled the sound: the wheezing, bubbling, shallow gasps as Piston fought a losing battle in her attempts to breathe.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up. The young man was looking very concerned and Annie realised that tears had been pouring down her face without her knowing it.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘And thank you for returning these. It means a lot to us, to her.’

‘It was no trouble,’ he said. ‘Are you okay?’

Annie wiped her eyes on her sleeves and sniffed.

‘I’ll be fine, dear. Thank you.’ She expected him to leave then, wanted him to, for all he had done for them. But he stayed there, looking as though he wanted to say something. At last, he seemed to find the courage.

‘Wha-what’s her name?’ he asked softly.

‘Piston.’

‘Piston…’ A gentle smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. ‘Do-do you think… er….’

Annie raised her eyebrows.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think, when she’s better, I could come and see her?’

Annie’s mouth fell open. She had not expected that and she felt a wild, insane urge to laugh. She got a firm hold of herself and said

‘Of course. I doubt she’ll mind. In fact, she’ll probably want to thank you herself, er…’

‘Oh, my name’s Adrian. Adrian Finchley.’ They shook hands and Adrian wrote his number at the bottom of the list. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs. Walter. I’m sure she’ll be all right. I’ll see myself out.’ And he left. Annie wiped her eyes again and then she quietly opened the door to the dining room and slipped inside.

 

On the last chord, the crowd erupted into cheers. They had already done an encore, but the audience was still screaming for more. The robots laughed and smiled and made their way offstage, heading straight round to meet the fans. The Spine switched his phone back on, tucked it into his pocket and sat down at the table with the other two. Rabbit was still on a high from all the applause and he and The Jon were talking nineteen to the dozen. But the fans were upon them already, babbling breathlessly about how great they all were. Several were in robot makeup. The Spine had never quite understood that. Why would humans want to be robots? Didn’t they understand what a gift it was to be human? He would have given his right arm to be so and here there were girls who painted gears and rivets on their faces. He didn’t understand. But the face paint was very well done and he told them so. The squeals of delight made him smile. He loved this, meeting so many different people, all of whom had one thing in common: a gratifying love of Steam Powered Giraffe. Knowing he could put smiles on so many faces meant far more to him than he knew how to express, but he tried, by signing autographs and letting people take pictures, telling a guy that a girl liked him very much. When the couple kissed, he felt a sense of pride that was almost paternal. All the hassle and the long, boring journeys and the hate some people had for them, it was all worth it for these moments. They were exhausting, but oh they were wonderful.

And then, as he finished the last autograph and the fangirl thanked him and trotted happily away, his phone rang.

‘Hi Katja.’

‘Hey, Spine! How was the show?’

‘Really good. How was your day?’

‘Urgh, boring. When will you be back? Friday, right?’

‘Yep.’

‘Will you be home by eight?’

‘Should be. Why?’

‘I’ve been invited to a party. You wanna come?’

‘Er, yeah. Okay.’

‘Great. I’ll pick you up. Good luck for tomorrow night!’ She rang off.

‘Was that Katja?’

‘Yes, Rabbit, it was.’

‘I-I-I like Katja.’

‘You’ve never even met her.’

‘But you’re happier now. So we like her,’ The Jon said, peering earnestly up at his brother from underneath his hat. The Spine couldn’t help but smile. Yes, he was happier now he wasn’t with Daphne and he didn’t mind admitting it. Katja had been very good for him. She was fun and relaxed and didn’t expect anything of him. He didn’t have to pander to her and even after knowing him for a couple of months, she still thought his being a robot was really cool.

 

It was later that night, when the band were all sitting up in their hotel room, talking and laughing, that The Spine got another call.

‘Hey Annie! How did Piston’s expedition go?’ he asked casually, expecting, and really quite hoping for, her to tell him every single detail several times over. But to his consternation, she sniffed and hiccupped and cried

‘Oh, Spine!’ before bursting into tears.

‘Annie, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’ Dread was flooding him now.

The others looked up.

‘I-I-Is something wrong with Annie?’ Rabbit asked anxiously. ‘Sh-sh-sh-she’s okay, isn’t she?’

The Spine flapped his hand at them to be quiet so he could hear.

‘Annie, what is it?’

‘It’s Piston,’ Annie sobbed into the phone. The Spine swore he could hear her tears falling onto the screen.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Some people brought her up to the house. They found her in alleyway. Someone attacked her, Spine.’

The Spine was dimly aware of Rabbit demanding to know what was going on, but most his brain had gone numb.

‘Is she…’ He couldn’t finish.

‘The boys are working on her now, but… Oh Spine, she’s so badly hurt! I don’t know if they’ll be able to fix her before…’

_Before it’s too late_ , The Spine finished in his head. He covered his face with a long-fingered hand, shock still freezing the circuits in his brain.

‘How… did this..?’ he asked softly.

‘We don’t know. All her plates are dented badly, the joints in her legs have been smashed and, Spine?’

‘Yeah?’

‘They cut her oil lines. Someone did this deliberately.’

‘Because of what happened in London?’

‘Probably.’

His brain had thawed out now, largely because the shock had been obliterated by the monumental wave of anger that was now threatening to consume him. How _dare_ someone do that to his family? Through the terrible grinding that had filled his audio receptors, he heard Annie say

‘Spine?’

‘How’s she doing?’ he queried, reining his anger in with extreme difficulty.

‘Not too well. They can’t get to everything because her plates are so dented, but they’ve replaced all the oil lines they can. But her core’s overheating trying to keep her alive. If they can’t repair enough of the damage in time…’ She tailed off. She didn’t need to say the rest. That if anything went wrong, Piston’s core would either burn itself out or explode, wiping half of San Diego out in the process.

‘We’ll leave right away.’

‘Don’t be silly!’ Annie snapped. ‘You’ll be days getting back and you can’t do anything. You’ve only got one more show anyway. Come back after that.’

‘Annie, we’re not waiting around here while our family’s in trouble!’ he all but shouted.

‘Spine! Stay away! If anything goes wrong, I don’t want you boys caught up in it. And besides,’ she continued, her voice softening. ‘If Rabbit and The Jon see her like this, it’ll bring back an awful lot of bad memories.’

He couldn’t argue with that. She was right, there _was_ nothing they could do to help Piston, but he could shield his brothers from further harm. Of course, getting them to accept the fact that they weren’t just going to go home would be difficult, but he could always hide the keys to the van. It wouldn't be the first time he had done it.

‘Okay, Annie. Let us know the second anything changes. We’ll see you on Friday.’

He put the phone away and only then realised that instead of sitting in the chair where he had been, he was bracing himself against the wall. He took his palm away gingerly and winced at the hand-shaped depression in the plaster.

‘SPIIIIIINE!’ Rabbit yelled. ‘What’s happened?!’

The Spine sighed and prepared himself to break the news.

 

***** And of course to take pictures. There’s always one.


	24. Cupid Laid By His Brand, And Fell Asleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering, this is the first line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 153.

She hung suspended in darkness. Somewhere there was pain, a terrible agony that consumed her so utterly it was as if it had possessed her, like a ghost. But in this place, this _nothing_ , she could put it aside. She dared not move from the stillness, lest the pain engulf her once more, but for now she was content not to feel anything at all. But despite her best efforts, every so often, something would leak through.

‘…Steam Powered Okapi…’ But that didn’t make any sense to her, so she ignored it.

‘She’s that robot from London! The terrorist!’ That should mean something to her, but trying to understand it sent agonising tendrils writhing through her, stopping abruptly in odd places, so she stopped trying to think about it.

A scream. Was someone in trouble? But she couldn’t do anything about it like this. She could bring herself round, but the pain told her she wouldn’t be able to function well enough to find out what was wrong. So she didn’t.

 

‘Piston? Piston?’ Another interruption. But this one didn’t bring quite so much hurt with it.

‘Pitson, I can’t reboot you. You need to do it yourself. Can you hear me?’ Yes, she could, but did she want to risk powering up again? This place was still and safe.

‘Piston, it’s okay. You’re safe.’ Was she? She recognised the voice, so perhaps she was. Then there was string of imaginative curses. It really was Peter, then. Piston screwed up her courage and turned herself back on.

 

It was a good thing his mother was no longer in the room, or she would have told him off for his extensive use of profanities. But perhaps she would have felt the situation warranted them. He certainly did. They had spent all night working on Piston’s battered frame. He was so tired he was slurring his words and he kept dropping his tools, because his fingers no longer had the dexterity to use them with protective gloves on. His father had insisted they get the suits out and given Peter a right bollocking when he admitted that he hadn’t worn one to repair Piston when she arrived. Now most of the robot was laid out on the dinner table. They had removed all of her dented plates, both lower legs, the ones it had taken Peter so long to get right, and replaced all of her cut lines. Her water, oil and hydraulic fluid levels were now nearly back up to normal and although they still had a lot of work to do, in theory she should have been able to function. Except that she wouldn’t turn back on and Peter had taken out her power button all those weeks ago. So all he could do was plead with her and hope to God she could hear him. They had to find out now if she could still turn on and now Peter wasn’t sure if she wasn’t because she couldn’t or if it was because she had retreated to some inner place of safety, as he had seen the other bots do before. Of course, that eerie green core of hers was still overheated, but for all they knew, she could be having power surges again. Whether or not that was a good thing, only time would tell.

 _Clink_ … The tiny noise broke in upon his musings and he realised he had almost dozed off completely. He shook himself awake and stared at Piston, who now resembled a brass skeleton.

 _Clink…_ There it was again. One finger had quivered into life and was tapping gently on the table. Peter VI glanced at what was left of Piston’s face. Very, very slowly, the light from eyes was strengthening. He had been so glad that whatever other damage had been done to her, her photoreceptors hadn’t suffered. For some reason he could not fathom, they appeared to be linked into her core, totally unlike the Walter robots and he would not have wanted to try to repair them. The light grew so bright for a moment that he had to look away before it dimmed a little.

‘…Peter?’ Her voice was dry and horse, just as it had been on the rooftop and for one bizarre moment, Peter found himself wondering if any time had passed at all, or whether these months had all been a product of his imagination and he had still to put the brass girl to rights for the first time.

‘Peter?’ Her voice was little stronger, but it rang with anxiety.

‘It’s all right. You’re safe,’ he said again. ‘You’re home.’

‘…Hurts,’ she whispered.

‘Where?’

There was a silence and Piston’s eyes flickered as she considered.

‘Arms… knees…’

Both Peters did a mental review of the work they’d done on her.

‘I think,’ Peter V said, giving her a quick check. ‘That’s where your electrics have been damaged. We’ll sort those out soon. Anything else?’

‘Breathing not quite right.’

Peter VI began systematically checking her bellows and cooling system over. He found the leather of her bellows had a couple of tiny tears in them and a small pipe deep in the complicated workings around her core had buckled. He replaced the pipe immediately, after instructing Piston to suspend her breathing, and then debated whether it was worth trying to stitch the leather or whether it would be easier just to replace the whole thing.

‘Replace it,’ his father said, leaning over his shoulder. ‘You’re too tired and it’s too fiddly to mend anyway. Piston,’ he continued. ‘After we do this, do you think you’ll be all right to power down? We need to get some sleep before we start making mistakes, but we can wait if that’ll put you in danger.’

‘I’ll… be fine,’ Piston grated out.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ And just like that she had powered down again, rendering all further protests useless.

 

The young man was hovering awkwardly on the doorstep when Annie opened the door.

‘Come in, Adrian,’ she said, stepping aside for him to pass. ‘Piston’ll be down in a minute.’

‘You said on the phone that she’s fully repaired? How she’s doing apart from that?’

Annie blinked. Adrian had only met Piston once, when she wasn’t in a state to do anything at all and yet he had understood that not only was she alive, but that the attack would leave emotional scars, even if her chassis was as good as new. She sighed and shook her head.

‘Not good, I’m afraid. But she still insisted on thanking you in person.’

‘Really? She didn’t have to do that. She doesn’t have to thank me at all.’

 

‘I-I want to,’ came a nervous voice. A nervous English voice. He hadn’t expected that, somehow. Adrian turned and looked up the staircase. For the length of time it took for the girl to come down from the landing, stop in front of him and after a few moments’ silence, to raise her eyebrows, he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even think. She was quite simply the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He hadn’t realised that when he had seen her before. Her face and body had been too battered to get any sense of what she looked like and he hadn’t understood why he was so interested in seeing her again. But now, now he saw she had a sculpted, slender face, a highly curvaceous figure enclosed in a blue peasant top and a ruffled green skirt and skin of a most gorgeous, shimmering colour. Her hair fell in soft waves of black silk, framing her face perfectly and her eyes glowed like a pair of emeralds held up to the sun.

‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘For saving my life.’

The words jolted his brain back into action.

‘It was nothing. And loads of other people helped,’ he said awkwardly, running a hand through his brown hair which suddenly seemed far too long and shaggy.

‘I know. I thanked them over the phone. But Annie said you wanted to see me and I thought it would be rude to refuse.’

‘You didn’t have to worry about that,’ he mumbled, secretly very pleased that she had wanted to thank him in person. ‘How are you doing?’

She looked away.

‘All right.’ It was lie, they all knew.

‘I’ll go make some coffee,’ Mrs Walter said, disappearing down the hall.

‘Is there anything I could to help?’ Adrian asked gently, daring to take a step forward.

‘You’ve already done more than enough,’ Piston said listlessly. ‘Thank you for saving my violin too.’

‘Are you good at playing?’ he asked, trying to force down a desire to find out absolutely everything about her life.

‘My teacher says so,’ she said modestly. ‘What’s your name? Adrian?’

‘That’s right. And you’re Piston?’

She nodded. There was a pause, which grew until it had become the most uncomfortable silence Adrian had ever experienced. Eventually, he had to break it and out of sheer desperation, he blurted out the first thing he thought of.

‘Will you have dinner with me?’

‘I don’t eat,’ she said, looking taken aback.

‘Oh… Can you drink?’

‘Of course. Can’t everyone?’

It took him a moment to understand what she meant.

‘No, can you drink alcohol?’

‘Oh no, I can’t. It’s bad for my boiler.’ She sounded awkward, as though she didn’t want to remind him that she was a robot. He honestly hadn’t given it that much thought. For some reason, he kept thinking of her as a normal girl.

‘Well, would you like to go out for a drink? Everywhere serves water?’

‘Go… out?’ A frown appeared on her face and her voice trembled slightly.

Adrian throttled down a tremendous desire to kiss the crease away and said

‘You’d be safe. I’d make sure of that.’

But Piston was shaking her head, her eyes flashing brighter.

‘I’m sorry. I-I can’t.’

‘That’s okay,’ he said hurriedly. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her. ‘I don’t mind if you don’t want to, but… Please, will you think about it? Annie’s got my number. If you change your mind, let me know.’ And then, because his tongue had a habit of saying things his brain would rather have kept under wraps, he blurted out ‘I don’t mind if takes weeks, or even months. I’ll wait that long.’

 

He had been so intent on Piston, that he hadn’t heard the rumble of an exhaust outside, but suddenly the front door opened again and a whole crowd of people piled in. There was a loud cry of

‘ _Piston!_ ’ and he was shoved roughly aside as they all rushed towards the brass-skinned girl. He caught hold of the hat stand to keep himself upright and vaguely recognised the three robots who had now caught Piston in a huge, anxious embrace as the members of Steam Powered Giraffe who played so often in Balboa Park. The humans with them had also joined in the mass hug, so that Adrian could barely even see Piston through the tangle of arms and heads. He was wondering whether to just quietly let himself out, so as not to disturb the family reunion, when the tall, silver robot extracted himself from the muddle and came over.

‘Sorry,’ he said, in a smooth, rich voice. ‘Are you all right? We didn’t mean to shove you like that, we’re just so happy she’s all right.’ Relief was etched plainly across his face.

‘I’m fine,’ Adrian said.

‘Who are you, anyway? We don’t get a lot of visitors.’

‘Adrian Finchley. I… well, I just happened to be around when they found Piston, so I helped a bit.’

‘You’re Adrian?’ the man said. ‘Annie told us what you did. Thank you. There’s no way we’ll ever be able to repay you.’

‘I don’t need paying,’ he replied sincerely. ‘As long as she’s okay, that’s all that matters.’

The man heaved an enormous sigh and a quantity of hot steam blew out of his mouth into Adrian’s face. Adrian coughed and tried to wave it away.

‘I’m sorry!’ the man said again.

‘Are _you_ all right?’ Adrian asked politely.

The silver robot lowered his voice.

‘I’m just worried about Piston. So much has happened to her and that was her first time out on her own. I hope she’ll get over it.’

Adrian nodded sympathetically. He, too, wanted Piston to get over it. Mostly for her own sake, but also that way he could take her out on a date.

 

‘I wish I’d been here,’ The Spine said, at last voicing his guilt to someone.

‘You couldn’t have done anything if you had, Spine. She was too far away from the house for you to pick her up on the Wi-Fi.’

‘But I could have walked down to meet her.’

‘And I should have told her why she should stay out of alleyways,’ Annie sighed. ‘And I didn’t. Why didn’t I? How could I forget something that would help keep her safe?’

‘That doesn’t make it your fault, Annie,’ he hastened to reassure her.

‘Doesn’t it?’

‘No! It’s the fault of the sadistic bastards who hurt her!’ he said vehemently. The thought of it made his oil boil in its conduits.

‘At least she’s safe,’ Annie sighed. ‘If those people hadn’t found her…’ One corner of her mouth curved in a very small smile.

‘What?’ The Spine asked.

‘You know, horrible as this has all been, Piston might actually have gained something from it.’

‘Like what?’ The Spine said, puzzled and slightly indignant. ‘A permanent fear of going out the house isn’t a benefit you know, Annie.’

‘That’s not what I meant. I meant that young man who came today, Adrian.’

‘What about it?’

‘Oh, Spine, are you blind? Didn’t you see the way he looked at her? He’s smitten with her. Our Piston might just have found love.’

That notion should have made The Spine very happy indeed. He should have been overjoyed that someone had fallen in love with Piston and that she might like this man in return. So why did he feel so sad, as though he’d lost something very precious? Was it sadness, or was it… disappointment?


	25. Mansfield Park

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, well, time for another chapter already! As ever, I hope you guys are still reading/enjoying this and I particularly hope you like Adrian.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with it this far. Really, we're at the beginning to the end now.

Adrian, shifting nervously from foot to foot, tried in vain to smooth back the one lock of hair that always fell into his eyes. His heart seemed to be stuttering in his chest and his stomach felt as though a fox was having a litter of cubs inside it. He wasn’t entirely sure that your belly was supposed to do that, even when you were nervous. And boy, was he nervous. As was his habit, he began running through the various ways this date could go wrong, telling himself that as long as Piston didn’t hate him, he could cope. Secretly, he knew that wasn’t true. What he really wanted was for them to confess undying love for each other and get started on eternal bliss, but he knew there was less chance of that happening than the Devil had of going tobogganing. Still, he had put a great deal of thought into this date and he hoped that at the very least, Piston would enjoy it.

Then he heard footsteps and the fox delivered twins. The front door of the Manor opened and a pair of brilliant blue eyes peered up at him from underneath a large top hat.

‘Are you here to see Piston?’ the robot asked.

Adrian nodded.

The robot put his head on one side and considered him for a short time. Then he held the door open and beckoned Adrian in, saying

‘I’ll go and tell her you’re here!’ Then he bounded off up the staircase.

Adrian shut the front door and hovered awkwardly in the hallway. He smoothed back his hair again. He examined the pictures around the room, but found they only made him more nervous. What were those creatures in the painting by the hat stand? Were they harpies or sirens? Whatever they were, they gave him the distinct impression he was about to be eaten.

Then a clatter behind him made him jump. He spun on his heel and saw the copper robot (Rabbit, was it?) staring at him.

Then the man opened his mouth and let out a yell that shook plaster dust from the ceiling.

‘ADRIAN’S HERE!!!’

His voice died away, leaving Adrian’s ears quite literally ringing. No sooner had he brushed the dust off of his shoulders, than the hallway was suddenly swarming with people. They were all staring at him. Mrs Walter bustled forward.

‘It’s lovely to see you again, my dear,’ she said warmly. ‘Piston’ll be down any minute. Rabbit, if I’ve told you off for shouting once, I’ve done it a hundred times. Especially don’t do it in front of guests.’

Rabbit pulled a face behind Annie’s back, looking distinctly less than chagrined.

Heavy footsteps reverberated through the room and the brass robot who had opened the door came thundering back downstairs.

‘I was going to tell her!’ he fumed, glaring at Rabbit, who sniggered. ‘Spine, he stole my job!’

The tall, silver man who had spoken to Adrian last time, wearing an expression of wearied patience, intervened.

‘Rabbit, stop teasing The Jon. Jon, it doesn’t really matter who told Piston.’

‘Don’t worry, Jon. You can tell me next time.’

Piston was standing at the top of the stairs and Adrian felt his mouth drop open once more. This time she was wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt, a black, satin underbust corset, black skinny jeans and lace-up boots, a combination which showed off her figure in the best possible way. She hurried down the stairs and stopped in front of him. Adrian closed his mouth and swallowed very hard.

‘Hi,’ he said and instantly cursed himself for the inanity of the remark.

‘Hi,’ Piston replied. Was it his imagination, or did she look nervous too? He was very conscious of six other pairs of eyes trained on them.

‘Adrian,’ Mrs Walter said. ‘You don’t mind if I ask where you’re planning on going? Only we’d all feel better if we know exactly where Piston will be.’

‘Oh, of course,’ he said, tearing his eyes away with reluctance from Piston. ‘I thought we’d go to the Lake Murray Park. I love it there.’ It was also the total opposite of the dark, dingy, enclosed alleyway Piston had been attacked in and he hoped that would make it easier for her. From the expression on the robots’ and the Walters’ faces, they obviously thought so too.

‘Well, that sounds lovely. Have a wonderful time, you two.’

Adrian smiled.

‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured them. ‘I’ll have her back safe and sound before dark.’

‘You’d better,’ Rabbit said, narrowing his eyes.

‘Rabbit!’ Piston scolded. ‘Don’t be mean!’

‘I’m not! I’m just trying to keep you safe!’

Adrian noticed that no one else told Rabbit off for what he had said. Apparently Piston’s family all felt the same way.

‘Ready?’ he asked Piston, who bit her lip, but nodded.

 

‘Did we do the right thing?’ Annie asked the second the door clicked shut behind the pair. ‘If someone recognised her at night, they’re bound to in broad daylight! Do you think I should go after them? Oh no, that would ruin it for them. But did we-’

‘Annie, stop fussing!’ The Spine snapped. ‘They’ll be fine!’

There was silence as everyone gazed in surprise at him.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered, wishing he didn’t feel so irritable and hating himself for taking it out on Annie.

‘Are you all right, Spine?’ Peter VI asked, concerned.

‘Fine,’ he said shortly. ‘Annie, no one recognised Piston when we took her out shopping and if they did, they kept it to themselves. The chances of her being attacked again are pretty slim. And Adrian’ll be with her this time. If anything goes wrong, he’ll get her out of there.’ Then without waiting for a reply, he said ‘Come on, guys, we’ve got rehearsals today.’

As he shepherded his brothers out of the hall, Annie heaved a tremendous sigh.

‘Oh dear,’ she said.

‘What?’ Peter V asked.

‘Didn’t you two notice?’

‘Notice what?’ her son and husband said in unison.

‘The way The Spine behaved?’

‘Well, he seems a bit grumpy today,’ Peter VI conceded. ‘But what’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Annie said, rolling her eyes at them. ‘Couldn’t you see it? He was unhappy because Adrian was here. He’s jealous.’

 

The lake was a hot blue, like The Jon’s eyes, or maybe a flame from a gas jet. Sitting under the trees, on the soft grass with Adrian, Piston felt able to relax, just a little. To say she had been worried about going outside Walter Manor again would have been a massive understatement. She knew what had happened would be unlikely to again, but that didn’t stop her fearing it. There had been moments, many of them, when she wondered whether she really needed to go outside. She had spent most of her life inside already, so what difference would it make? In fact, she had been very close to telling Adrian to forget the whole thing, had been on the verge of doing so when he had said that he wanted to take her to a park. Piston had realised why he had chosen this place and that made her reconsider. If it was different from that horrible, nightmarish alleyway, maybe she could be brave enough to face the outside world again. Confronting her killing of Marcus had not been pleasant, but it had been worth it. Maybe this would be the same. So she had said nothing, but had allowed Adrian to hand her into his car and drive them down to the lake. He had carefully positioned them so that they could enjoy the view, while remaining within sprinting distance of his Ford. As Annie liked to say, better safe than sorry.

‘Thank you for agreeing to come out with me,’ Adrian said as a slight breeze rustled the leaves above them. ‘I know it can’t be easy for you.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Piston said honestly. ‘But this is nice.’ Her gesture took in the azure fire of the lake, the sloping green and yellow banks and the ever-cloudless sky. ‘I’m glad I came.’

‘So am I,’ Adrian murmured.

A pigeon began cooing over their heads and another some distance away answered it. Piston listened, wondering what they were saying. The Jon could probably have told her, she thought. He often knew interesting things like that.

‘Would you like some water?’

Piston looked down and saw Adrian was offering her a bottle. She considered. The heat of the day and her worry had combined to make her boiler rather less efficient than usual.

‘Yes please,’ she said politely and took the bottle. Her boiler must have been emptier than she realised because she drank the whole thing in one.

Adrian took the empty bottle back and chuckled.

‘I’m not surprised you were thirsty,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it too hot to be wearing all that black?’

‘Probably,’ she said. Then she frowned. ‘But you’re wearing black jeans, too.’

‘Yes, but I haven’t combined them with a black satin corset.’

‘Oh, is that wrong?’ Piston asked, still frowning. ‘I don’t always get things right. I’m still learning.’

‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said hastily. ‘You look lovely. No, you look stunning.’

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Are you okay?’

Adrian looked thoroughly baffled and slightly disconcerted.

Piston grinned and then the grin became a laugh.

Adrian caught on and his shoulders shook as he joined in. Their laughter mingled and startled several pigeons out of the tree above them. The birds wheeled out over the burnished water of the lake and then dived back towards the earth, their wings gleaming in the bright afternoon sun.

 

Peter VI sat at the desk in his workshop, a frown creasing his young face. Spread out on the scratched, scuffed and acid-stained wood in front of him were piles of notes written in his own cramped and scrawling hand. They were all about Piston. Peter ran his hands through his hair, leaving it standing on end, and began sorting through them for about the hundredth time. First were a series of blueprints that he had made as he had worked on Piston when she first arrived at the Manor. Despite not wearing a protective suit, he had been diligent about keeping an eye on his own health: he had had no wish to become a zombie like the operators of Bacile’s elephants. But that hadn’t happened. A couple of times, when he had been working on her for too long, he had felt slightly queasy, but that could just as easily have been caused by hunger.

Something, he knew, wasn’t quite right about Piston. Or rather, something wasn’t quite wrong. In some ways, her green matter core acted exactly as he expected it to, such as its erratic power output. But in others, it was more like working with one of the other bots. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered how Piston even came to exist. Not her body, that was obvious, but her life. Green matter had not given life to the copper elephants, the way blue matter had to the Walter robots, so how had it given Piston life?

With a groan, Peter dropped his head onto the desk. All this mystery was beginning to hurt even his brain.

A few minutes later, the workshop was filled with the sounds of Peter’s faint snores, while in his brain, copper elephants danced the ballet with Piston and The Spine waltzing hand in hand.

 

The Spine gazed up at the sky, angry with himself. He was jealous. He was finally admitting it: he didn’t want Piston to go out with Adrian because _he_ wanted to take her out. She was kind and beautiful and she accepted him for who he was. And now, because he had been too caught up in his own problems, she was out of his reach.

_Maybe they won’t get on_ , he caught himself thinking and sternly told himself off for it. _No, I won’t spoil this for either of them. She deserves it after all she’s been through and he seems like a nice man. He thinks of her as a person, not a robot. I can tell._ He sighed, dropping his photoreceptors to examine the grassy slope of the hill by the Manor. He shifted position, looping his arms around his knees and drawing them up to his chest. _I shouldn’t have taken my frustration out on Annie. That wasn’t fair. I’ve got to be my normal self. Nothing’s really changed. And besides I still have Katja. Even if it’s very open._ Katja made no secret of the fact that she dated other men. After Daphne, it had been wonderful to know he wasn’t under pressure for anything, but now he wondered whether he didn’t want something more. Something like…

The image of a katana filled his vision, lying inches from the still, outstretched hand that had wielded it. The Spine shook his head to clear the picture away and huffed steam out of his back. Could he ever really move on from Konoko? If he did somehow begin dating Piston, would it end up the way it had with Daphne, with bitterness and an inability to say three little words?

The sun was going down before he went back to the house and only then because he could see Adrian’s car climbing sluggishly back up the hill, protesting at having to haul a brass robot’s considerable weight around.

As The Spine turned to go back to the house, he missed the flash as the sun reflected off something glass hidden amidst a dense clump of bushes.


	26. Meeting at Night

 

Her second date with Adrian didn’t go nearly so well. In retrospect, Piston realised she should probably have seen it coming. It wasn’t as if her core had stopped acting erratically since the night she had been attacked, but that terrible event and Adrian’s surprising interest in her had put it out of her mind. The thought of going outside again made her shudder, but their trip out to the park had not ended in disaster and that lent her some small measure of comfort. Adrian… In a way, Piston wasn’t entirely sure what to make of him. He had saved her life and she was extremely grateful for that, but he had also asked her out to dinner and taken her to a park. He also kept complimenting her. From what The Spine had told her about his relationships with Daphne and Katja, she was pretty sure these were things that happened when you dated someone. Did that mean that Adrian wanted to date her? Or were they already dating? But how could they be if she had only just thought about it? And did that mean they were in love? No one in the family, robot or human had been able to explain what that meant satisfactorily. Rabbit had started singing ‘On Top of the Universe’, Annie had smiled nostalgically and told her that she’d know it when she felt it, The Jon had simply giggled, Peter VI had gazed blankly at her as though she’d spoken in another language and then asked her to pass him a mole wrench, Peter V had coughed and looked embarrassed and The Spine…The Spine had looked so forlorn and unhappy and had given such a deep sigh that she had hurriedly changed the subject. Of course, she could always ask Adrian, but Annie had advised her against doing that.

‘Don’t,’ she had said firmly. ‘You’ll only hurt him.’

‘Why would that hurt him?’ Piston had asked, bemused. The intricacies of emotion were often still a mystery to her.

‘Because if you have to ask, he’ll assume you don’t love him,’ Annie had explained patiently.

‘But that doesn’t make sense. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have to ask, would I?’

‘Oh, Piston,’ Annie had sighed. ‘People don’t always make sense. Emotions aren’t logical.’ 

So in the end, she had promised not to ask Adrian whether they were in love, unless he brought it up first. Annie had told her not to hold her breath, which had just confused Piston; why shouldn’t she hold her breath? She wasn’t human, so it wouldn’t hurt her. It transpired this was yet another idiom she hadn’t come across.

 

In the midst of all this soul-searching, although Piston wasn’t very sure what a soul was or how you knew you had one, she didn’t notice the beginnings of the lethargy. It came on very slowly this time, starting with little things. She began powering up a few minutes later and turning in for the night a little earlier, without knowing she was doing it. If someone passed her something, a tool, a glass of water, a rainbow-patterned lettuce, it grew more and more likely that she’d drop it and Peter VI started nagging her about maintenance and letting him run diagnostics on her reflexes. In fact, although Peter had always been interested in how Piston was put together, lately it seemed to have become an obsession. The second she had dressed, done her daily maintenance routine and topped her boiler up for the day, he was there asking her if he could run tests, examine her gears or, and this was the bit Piston found annoying, take bits of her apart to see how they worked.

‘Peter, you built most of me yourself!’ she exclaimed one day about a week after her date with Adrian. ‘Why do you need to take me all apart again?’ If she was honest, the thought frightened her not a little. Both times he had done extensive work on her before, she had nearly died. She’d had quite enough of being broken and she told him so.

‘You’re not broken!’ he said, astonished. ‘And actually, most of what I did was replace components and streamline your systems. I didn’t invent them. You’re made completely differently to the others and I’m just really interested to see how. It could have a bearing on my current project, you see.’

In the end, Piston let him do what he wanted. She felt obliged to: the Walters had done so much for her and she had done nothing to repay them. At least this way she could feel she was contributing something, even if it was inconvenient and a bit uncomfortable.

‘What is your current project?’ she asked as she lay on the workbench.

Peter paused for a moment and looked up from her core. He was wearing a strange lens in that looked like something out of an old car. It made one blue eye look about five times as large as the other. If Piston had had a stomach, it would have turned at the sight.

‘Oh,’ Peter said awkwardly. ‘Just the usual. Robotics, obviously. It’s just something I’ve picked up again. Should have done it sooner, really.’ She couldn’t get anything more out of him after that, so Piston dropped the subject. She couldn’t be bothered to press the issue, anyway.

 

No sooner had Peter finally put her chest panels back on, than Piston got a message.

_Adrian’s on the phone. Asking to speak to you. Annie._

_Ok,_ she sent back. _I’ll be right down._ She brushed off Peter’s protests that he had more to do and made her way downstairs. The Manor was so big and complicated that she was still getting lost occasionally, but the route from the workrooms had become familiar enough that Piston was fairly sure she could do it with her eyes closed. There were the familiar thuds as her weight connected with each stair and the slightly different tone when her feet finally touched the scuffed and dented wooden floorboards in the hall.

Annie was waiting for her, a little impatiently.

‘Come on,’ she whispered. ‘I hate making small talk.’

Piston took the phone.

‘…Hello?’

‘…Hello,’ she replied.

‘It’s me, Adrian.’

‘I know.’

‘Erm… how are you?’

‘Functional. Peter just checked. How are you?’

She heard a chuckle amongst the crackle of static.

‘I’m good. I was wondering… do you want to come and see a movie with me on Thursday?’

Rabbit had taken great pains to introduce Piston to the wonders of the medium of film and although she had greatly enjoyed Rabbit’s favourites, there were still elements about them that confused her. Maybe it was just that humanity still confused her.

‘Piston? Are you still there?’

‘Yes! Sorry. Yes, I’d like to come.’

‘Great!’ There was a note of relief in his voice. ‘Then how about you meet me outside the cinema at 7.30?’ He told her which cinema it was and although she didn’t recognise the name, she knew Annie or The Spine would.

‘So, I’ll, erm, see you then?’

‘Yes.’

There was silence.

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’

Piston put the phone back on the cradle, gently because she knew Rabbit had broken it more than once since it had been installed, and wondered where The Spine would be.

_Spine?_

_Yes?_

_Where are you?_

_Rehearsal room on the second floor, east wing._

_Okay._ She started climbing the stairs.

_Is something wrong?_

_No. But I thought you might know where something is._

As she turned the bend in the stairs, she caught a glimpse of someone in the garden through the high windows. But Piston thought nothing of it. Why shouldn’t someone be crouching amongst the rhododendrons?

 

‘Ah, yes, I know the place you mean,’ The Spine said, carefully picking out a sweet set of notes on his beautiful guitar. He started to laugh.

‘What?’ Piston asked.

‘Oh, it’s just that Rabbit got thrown out of there when the place first opened. He loves movies, as you know, and he wouldn’t clear out of the seat when they wanted him to. He didn’t really understand what tickets were for then, either.’

Piston frowned and put her head on one side.

‘Does that mean they won’t want another robot in there?’ she wondered, anxiously. She wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of being surrounded by people. What if she was recognised again?

The Spine smiled at her.

‘I don’t think you’ll have any problems. It’s been eighty years since that happened.’ A look of happy nostalgia drifted over his face. ‘Talkies were still new back then.’

‘Talkies?’ Piston asked.

‘Originally, movies didn’t have sound,’ he explained. ‘They were in black and white and they were silent.’

Piston found it hard to imagine that. The past was something of a closed book to her. She had enough trouble with how society worked _now_ , let alone complicating matters with how it used to be.

‘Don’t worry,’ The Spine said in his deep, soothing voice. ‘No one’ll recognise you. It’s dark inside cinemas and everyone’ll be looking at the screen, not at you.’

She wasn’t sure how, but The Spine always managed to make her feel better. He had a knack of saying exactly the right thing. Yes, she could do this. She would be safe.

 

This time, Piston had been equipped with a phone, trained in its use and told to text Annie when she wanted picking up. She was also instructed not to go off on her own and to make sure Adrian stayed with her until Annie arrived in the car.

‘Not that I think he’d abandon you,’ Annie had said. ‘But better safe than sorry.’

Now, Piston was staring out at the darkening city flashing past the windows of Annie’s car, wondering idly why she didn’t feel more nervous. She was heading into the outside world, where people might recognise her terrorist. They might even hurt her again. And yet, she could only summon the tiniest flicker of worry.

‘Excited?’ Annie asked brightly as they stopped for a red light.

Piston considered.

‘No… not really.’

‘Oh. I thought you wanted to go? You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.’

‘No, I want to go. I’m just not excited.’

Did she really want to go? Piston found she didn’t have much of an opinion either way. If Adrian had cancelled, she wouldn’t have minded, but then she didn’t mind going. She gave a mental shrug. At the moment, it seemed she didn’t really care what happened.

 

When Adrian saw her step out of the car, his heart trembled for a moment. As ever, she looked so beautiful and once again, he thanked whatever Power had sent her his way. It would have been nice if they could have met under slightly happier circumstances, but you couldn’t have everything in life. It was enough that he had her.

He waved at her.

‘Hi, Piston!’

She waved back. The tremor in him that her smile caused ran all the way down to his knees.

‘Have a good time you two and remember to let me know when you want picking up, dear, okay?’ Annie said. She winked broadly at him and then pulled away, back into the river of traffic.

Adrian reached out and took Piston’s cool, hard hand. She blinked at him in surprise, but didn’t pull away, so he read that as a good sign.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘Yes. What are we seeing?’

Explaining what he knew about the film, he led her inside the cinema. He had made sure to get their tickets ahead of time, so that the people on the desk couldn’t stare at her, and, mindful of Piston’s boiler, was smuggling a bottle of water in in his bag. It was shame they couldn’t share a bucket of popcorn, though.

Despite his efforts to reduce Piston’s contact with humans, she still attracted a fair amount of attention. The problem was, it was very hard to disguise the fact that she was a robot. The long, pale green, silk tunic she was wearing covered her arms, but the joints in her neck and face were still visible, as were the glowing green lights in her eyes. Then there was the way she craned her neck round, slightly further than a human could, to stare at everything.

‘Have you never been to the movies before?’ he inquired as they took their seats.

‘No... Rabbit showed me loads of films at home, but I’ve never been to a cinema before…’

That explained her curiosity, at any rate.

‘They’ll show quite a few adverts before the actual movie,’ he warned her, wondering whether she’d try to leave her seat, thinking the adverts were the whole thing. ‘Piston?’

‘…Okay…’ She sounded drowsy.

‘Do you fall asleep during films?’ Adrian asked.

‘…I’m a robot,’ she reminded him quietly. ‘…I power down, but I don’t do it by accident…’

Just then, the house-lights began to dim and Adrian settled back in his seat, glancing over at his robotic date every now and then.

At first, her eyes glowed brilliantly and there were several mutters from the audience, telling her to put the light out. But once the screen lit up and the adverts began playing, the glow slowly faded, so it was no longer turning everything emerald. And then the film started and Adrian grinned to himself. Here he was, watching a film he’d really wanted to see for ages, with a wonderful girl next to him. It was perfect.

 

The feeling of contentment lasted until the credits began to roll up. Adrian shifted in his seat and stretched his arms, feeling the stiffness in his muscles after their inactivity. He yawned and then said

‘What did you think?’

There was no response. Around him, people were moving, discussing the film while gathering up their bits and pieces and beginning to file out of their seats.

‘Piston?’ He turned to look at her as the lights came up again and he let out a choking sound.

Piston was sitting slumped to one side in her seat, her head resting listlessly to one side and her eyes gazing blankly at the screen, which was now showing the name of the unit director. Their glow was so dim that Adrian thought they had failed.

‘Piston!’ He shook her gently by the shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

She didn’t respond.

‘Excuse me,’ someone said impatiently from behind him. He squashed himself back against the seat and the people in their row began to shuffle past. The one in front made an exasperated noise when he came to Piston, whose legs were blocking the way.

‘Sorry, she’s not feeling well,’ Adrian said hurriedly.

‘Oh, is she okay? She looks… bad.’

‘She’ll be fine. If you could just give her some space?’

‘Sure. Of course.’ The group filed past as quickly as possible, some of them casting odd looks at Piston’s limp form.

When at last they were gone, Adrian bent forward and shook her again.

‘Piston! Piston! Please say something! What’s the matter?’

For a moment, the glow pulsed brighter in her eyes and her mouth opened very slightly. Then the light died again.

Adrian bit his lip, unsure what to do.

‘Sir? Can I ask you to leave, please? We need to clean the theatre.’ It was one of the cinema staff with a dustpan and brush on long sticks.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘My friend’s been taken ill. Is it okay if she just sits here for a bit until we get picked up?’ He tried to keep the worry out of his voice, but the lady heard it anyway.

‘Oh, of course, honey. Is it serious? Do you want me to call an ambulance?’

‘No thanks. I’ll call her family and they’ll come and get us.’ He pulled out his mobile as he talked and scrolled through the numbers until he reached ‘Walter Family Home’.

‘Hello?’ came a deep voice.

‘It’s Adrian,’ Adrian said. ‘It’s Piston. Something’s happened to her. She’s not moving and she won’t speak and her eyes are really dim and I don’t know what to do!’ He hadn’t intended to say that last, but it had come pouring out of him. He had promised to keep her safe, but now she was ill? Broken? He was quite sure it was his fault. He should have been paying more attention, should have checked she was okay.

‘Adrian?’

He realised The Spine had called him several times.

‘Yeah?’

‘Listen to me. She’s fine. Just keep talking to her and we’ll be there in a few minutes. She just gets like this sometimes. As long as you keep talking to her, she’ll be okay. Got that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, sit tight.’

Adrian pulled his seat back down and sank onto it. He grasped Piston’s hand. Was this really normal? He couldn’t believe that. If it was normal, The Spine wouldn’t have told him that he had to keep talking to her. Taking a huge, steadying breath, Adrian said

‘It’s okay, Piston. They’re coming to pick us up. It’s all going to be okay.’

 

The radio crackled.

‘Target now incapacitated. Suggest immediate extraction, over.’

‘Negative. Still too public. We cannot risk harm to civilians, repeat _no_ harm to civilians, over.’

‘But-’

‘I said negative! Continue watching target, over.’

There was another burst of static.

‘Incoming call. It’s the boyfriend, over.’

‘Can you hear what they’re saying? Over.’

‘They’re coming out to pick them up. Sounds pretty serious, over.’

‘Excellent. Gives us a chance to observe their emergency response. All units, hold positions.’


	27. Serenade

‘Spine!’

He had just jumped a red light. The van shot across the junction, prompting angry hoots from the other motorists.

‘Spine, slow down!’

‘A-A-Annie’s right, Spine,’ Rabbit said quietly. ‘Piston’s not in danger.’

He yielded with a sigh, knowing they were right. But the memory of Piston’s limp body and her dull, staring eyes was haunting him. He should have realised her core was acting up again! He should have been paying more attention.

He took a right, following his own internal map of San Diego. Just a couple more minutes and they would be there.

The whole family had insisted in coming along, so they had crammed themselves into the band’s van and were now hurtling through the crowded streets, the speedometer hovering around the speed limit. The Spine made a conscious effort to spare Annie’s nerves and slow down, but found himself speeding up again when he thought about Piston. Would she slip away this time, as she had been so close to doing last time? Was it only his singing that had kept her going or was that his ego talking, the wish that in some way, Piston needed him?

At last, he saw the cinema and stamped on the brake, pulling up right outside and leaping out as soon as the van had come to a halt. The others, for all their reassuring words, were just as quick.

‘You can’t park that here,’ said an officious-sounding voice. A man in cinema staff uniform was looking highly affronted, as though The Spine’s positioning of the van had somehow personally offended him.

The Spine, his brothers and the Peters totally ignored him and charged into the foyer, leaving Annie to deal with the self-appointed traffic warden. Piston was their priority now.

The lobby smelled overly sweet, like stale popcorn, and it was totally empty apart from a couple more staff members who were counting out the money in the tills. One of them looked up as they entered.

‘Sorry, we’re closing. There’s no more showings tonight.’

‘Our friend was taken ill here,’ Peter V explained hurriedly. ‘We’ve come to collect her.’

‘Oh, right! She’s in Screen 7, up the stairs and on the right.’

‘Thanks,’ Peter V said. He turned to the rest of his family and found that they had all disappeared. He sighed and, with the help of his walking-stick, hastened after them.

 

Despite his concern for Piston, Rabbit still found the time to gaze avidly around. The place had changed a lot in the last eighty years and he wondered if his ban was still in effect. The proprietor had used the word ‘lifetime’, but did that means his lifetime or the manager’s? In a way, he hoped he was still banned, because that made what he was doing now more exciting. Though, of course, it would have been much more fun if Piston hadn’t been in trouble. Perhaps he could come back here later…

Rabbit shook his head vigorously and leapt up four stairs at a time. The thud as he landed shook the walls.

‘Rabbit, please don’t break anything,’ Peter VI scolded, panting as he tried to keep up with the robots.

‘I-I-I-I won’t,’ Rabbit said, sticking his bottom lip out. ‘You never trust me!’

‘Come on!’ The Spine called, impatiently. As he had the longest legs, he had already reached the landing and was looking round for the door to the screen. Just as Rabbit caught up, his brother spotted the glowing number seven halfway down the corridor and was off again. There was another terrific crash as The Spine’s heavy body hit the double doors and vanished through them. They had barely begun to close when Rabbit shouldered his way through them, The Jon right behind him. Neither of them noticed the squawk of alarm as the doors slammed shut in Peter’s face. They were too busy focusing on Piston’s horribly limp form.

Rabbit reached out blindly for a chair to support him, remembered Peter’s words and gripped The Jon’s arm instead. His brother clung to him and they swayed, temporarily transfixed by memories they had thought long-since buried.

 

_The flash of light from a shell momentarily gilded his brother’s face, as though the dirt and muck had been wiped away and the metal underneath burnished. But then the light and the illusion faded as a torrent of earth and shrapnel rained down on them. Rabbit threw himself across his brother to shelter him. The last thing The Spine needed was even more damage. He was lying crookedly against the side of the trench, his head lolling at a hideous angle and his limbs shattered. As Rabbit picked himself up again, his feet slid in the foul-smelling slush of mud, blood and oil._

Rabbit shook himself all over, like a wet dog, and refocused on the present. The situation was nothing like as dire as that time had been. Piston was not in any immediate danger. But looking at her, in that broken position, he found it hard to remember that.

‘Piston?’ he said, finally letting go of The Jon and hurrying forwards. The Spine was already bending over her and Adrian was standing next them, twisting his hands in anxiety.

‘Is she going to be okay?’ he was asking.

‘She’ll be fine,’ The Spine said, soothingly, but rather vaguely.

 _Piston?_ Rabbit heard him send. Their van had Wi-Fi to allow them to converse silently outside the Manor. _Piston? Can you hear me?_

There was no answer. A tremor ran through Rabbit’s whole body and he glitched worse than ever as he fell to his knees with a thud beside her and cried

_P-P-P-P-PIS-T-T-TOOOOOON!!!_

_…Hmmm..?_

‘Piston?’ The Jon gasped, crouching next to Rabbit, who heard Peter coming up behind them too.

_…Ye..s…Wha..t’s…the…ma…tter..?_

‘I suppose you can’t move?’ Peter asked, rather unnecessarily, Rabbit thought.

_…No…_

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Adrian asked, snow running his hands through his hair over and over again.

‘Her power core is quite erratic,’ The Spine explained, not taking his eyes off the brass robot. ‘It has its ups and downs and at the moment-’

‘She’s on a down?’

They all nodded.

 

The Jon gazed at Piston through his widened photoreceptors. He hadn’t been prepared for the upsurge of memory seeing her had brought on, but aside from that he was genuinely afraid for her. Despite the fact that she had suffered such an episode before and emerged from it unscathed, that didn’t mean she always would. The Jon had a Bad Feeling and he had learnt never to ignore his Feelings. They had been right far too often for him to do that.

He reached out and patted Piston’s hand. One of her fingers twitched slightly and the tense knot that his internal wirings had got into eased a little.

‘It’s all right, Piston,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘We’re going to take care of you until you’re better.’

He caught the creak of the doors and the soft tap of Peter V’s cane. There was a hiss of indrawn breath.

‘She doesn’t look good, does she?’ he said. ‘Hmm. Well, we can’t do anything for her here. Let’s get her back up to the house.’

‘We need to get her down to the van first,’ The Spine pointed out. ‘Help me get her up, Rabbit. Piston, we’re going to lift you up and then carry you down to the van, all right?’

_…O…kay…_

‘I’ll help,’ Adrian said quickly.

The Jon knew that he was desperate to do something for Piston, but he shuffled round and held Adrian back.

‘They can manage,’ he said quietly. Adrian would be more of a hindrance than a help, the state he was in.

They clambered out of the seats to give his brothers more room and The Spine looped his arms underneath Piston’s while Rabbit lifted her legs. Together, they heaved her out of her seat and began to carry her to the doors.

Just as they reached them, they flew open again and Annie nearly walked slap-bang into Piston. She gasped in horror at the apparently lifeless body and shrank back against the wall to allow Rabbit and The Spine past. The others followed them as they carried Piston through the corridor as fast as they could. Even with two very strong robots, The Jon knew hauling her around was hard work. Not only was Piston very heavy, she couldn’t support any of her own weight and her polished metal plates made it difficult to grip her securely.

When they got to the top of the stairs, The Spine stopped, unwilling to make delay, but equally unwilling to pitch them all head first down the staircase.

The Jon nipped in front of them and took hold of one of Piston’s arms. The Spine took the other and they began to edge down the stairs. The brothers had worked and played and simply lived together for so long that they often knew what the others were thinking without being told and that meant they could work as a seamless team.

At last, they were in the foyer, carrying their sister past the staring eyes of the cinema staff and out into the street. Peter VI darted ahead and opened the van door. Or at least he tried to and discovered they were locked.

‘I’ve got the key,’ The Spine told him and Peter had to rummage through the robot’s pockets until he produced it, garnering several peculiar looks from passers-by, although that might have been because of Piston.

Peter got the doors open finally and pulled the ramp down. The interior was designed for the band to relax on long journeys and even had a sofa-bed. Peter unfolded it and hopped out again to let Piston’s stretcher-bearers carry her up into the van and lay her tenderly on the bed.

Adrian clambered up behind them, his face still set with worry.

‘P-P-Piston, we’re in the v-v-van now,’ Rabbit said softly.

‘We’ll be home in a few minutes,’ The Spine told her.

The Jon noticed that his brother’s hand twitched as he spoke, almost as though he had intended to stroke Piston’s hair.

‘Piston? Did you hear?’ The Jon asked when they got no reply.

_…Y…es…H…ho…me…_

She sounded fainter than ever and they all felt an extra surge of worry.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ The Spine said, a wobble in his normally steady voice. ‘I’ll drive. Rabbit, Jon, can you stay with her? Talk to her. And sing to her. That – that helped, last time.’ He exited the back of the van before they could even agree. Annie made to follow him, but turned as she left.

‘Adrian, you’re welcome to stay with us for a few nights. I know you won’t want to leave her until you know she’s okay.’ And then she pushed the ramp back up into the van and slammed the doors.

The Jon turned back to Piston as the Peters settled themselves on the edge of the sofa-bed.

‘Sing something for her, Rabbit,’ he begged. ‘Would you like that, Piston?’

_…Mmm…_

‘Just hold on,’ he murmured to her, leaning close to her ear. ‘The Spine needs you. Hold on.’

Rabbit began to croon.

‘Some girls say all they need is dreaming…’

 

‘Target is now in the van with the family and boyfriend. Shall I pursue? Over.’

‘Affirmative, but not too closely. Just make sure they _are_ going back to the Manor, over.’

‘The target looked bad, sir. What if it’s no longer operational? Over.’

‘We continue with the plan, whether it’s operational or not. Those are the orders. Over and out.’

 

‘Where shall we put her?’

‘Put her on the sofa in the living room.’ Annie was once more being the voice of level-headed reason. ‘That way we can all be with her.’

‘J-J-Jon? Where you going?’

‘To get our instruments, so we can play for her properly.’

‘Is there anything we can actually _do_ for her?’

‘I’ll get the blueprints I made. Maybe we can work out a better way of connecting to her power core…’

‘We can try, son, but I think the problem’s in the green matter, not in the connection.’

Piston heard all of this going on around her without really understanding it. Did any of it truly matter? For a fleeting moment, she was aware that something bad was happening to her, but the recognition passed almost as soon as it came.

The world around her was dim and unfocused, but that was okay, because she couldn’t concentrate on it anyway. Not that she wanted to. Silence filled her head, deep and all-consuming. She could just lie here forever. The half-familiar shapes that ghosted through her vision were making noises again, but she ignored them. They weren’t important. Nothing was anymore. It wasn’t peace she felt, because she wasn’t feeling anything, but it was something akin to that. And it would be complete if she just… stopped. But she found she couldn’t do that. Something kept her going, although it struggled to do so. Even as she slipped further into the silence, it tried to drag her up again. What was it? Something… inside her? But it didn’t… really…matter…

And then there was a sound, a deep resonant note that vibrated all the way through her and filled the silence in her head with noise. Before it had died away, it was repeated and then again and again. Music, she realised. Someone was playing music.

‘Piston?’

_…Yeah?..._

It was… The Spine! It was The Spine talking to her!

‘Is there anything you’d like us to play?’

His voice, with its beautiful, soothing tones, reached places in her that the music couldn’t. The world grew a little brighter.

 _…Rex…Marksley…please…_ She wanted to hear more of that voice. It was important. She struggled to remember. Someone had told her something, whispered it in her ear. The Jon! He had said… but the memory slipped through her grasp as the room darkened again.

But then the music and The Spine’s voice swelled at the same time and they helped to lift her up out of the silence. The fragile thing inside her seemed to gain strength.

‘…gun-slinging…best…’

‘Here, Piston, I’ve brought you some water.’

She heard the man’s words faintly over the music and struggled to make sense of them. Something cool slid down her throat, bringing back awareness of how dry it had been. Her core began to make easier weather of it now she wasn’t running on empty.

‘…jammed the guns that fired his way…’

Piston let the song sweep her away, patiently waiting for her power output to increase again.

 

They were very talented musicians, but Adrian wasn’t listening. He was sitting on the edge of his seat, a frown creasing his forehead. Something he had heard was repeating itself in his head again and again. Something The Jon had said.

_The Spine needs you…_

Perhaps he’d misheard… But then he remembered the panic in The Spine’s face when he’d arrived back after Piston had been attacked, the way the automaton had almost bowled him over to get to the brass girl.

 _He loves her,_ Adrian thought. _Just like I do_. Staring at Piston’s prone form, struggling with the urge to reach out and take her hand, he wondered if she loved him back. With the state she was in at the moment, it was impossible to tell, so Adrian sat and waited, music pouring past him, until Annie gently, but firmly, insisted he get some sleep and all but pulled him up the stairs.

‘You won’t be any use to her if you’re too tired to see straight,’ she said in a tone that brooked no argument and Adrian found himself complying. ‘Don’t worry,’ Annie said kindly. ‘One of us will stay with her tonight.’

Adrian had a suspicion he knew who that would be.

 

The Spine hummed softly as he worked. He was ensconced in an armchair by the sofa, the coffee table spread with paper. He was alone, now that Annie had chivvied every one else off to bed. Every now and then he glanced over at Piston.

 _How are you doing?_ he asked silently.

_…Slightly…better…_

At least she wasn’t splitting her words up anymore.

_…What’re… you doing?_

_The accounts,_ he told her. _It means I’m working out how much money we’ve spent, how much we’ve made, what taxes we’ve paid, that sort of thing._

_…Oh…I see…_

The Spine gave a very soft sigh. He had hoped that the routine work of bookkeeping would help him to sort out his feelings, but he was just as conflicted as ever. On the one hand, he wanted to go down on his knees and beg Piston to be with him forever. But he had no idea whether Piston liked him back, or even if she would understand what he meant. And then there was Adrian to consider. The Spine had experienced enough heartache to know he never wanted to inflict it on others. He couldn’t do that to the man, especially not after what Adrian had done to save Piston’s life and help her pluck up the courage to go outside again. But the main problem was not his moral qualms. How could he love Piston when he was still in love with Konoko, when even after nearly twenty years, thinking of her death still cut him to his soul?

A faint noise made him start and he realised that, once again, he had begun to cry, his oily tears now spattering the invoice for the coffee table that had replaced the one Rabbit had broken arm-wrestling them all. He carefully dabbed the worst of it off with a tissue from a box by Annie’s usual chair. At least no one but him would see the evidence. He put the paper to one side to dry and picked up the next one, but as soon as he did so, that too was speckled with black. The Spine wiped his eyes and cheeks, but the oil wouldn’t stop leaking from his photoreceptors. He hoped dully that it was the result of a malfunction, but deep in his burning blue core, he knew it was just another symptom of his own weakness, his inability to deal with Konoko’s death. He had to pull himself together, he couldn’t afford to come apart like this, not least because he was supposed to be minding Piston. It wouldn’t do her any good if he kept on like this. In fact, it might put her at risk.

_…Spine..?_

He jumped and hastily bent his head low, wiping his face clean again.

 _Yes? You all right, Piston?_ He didn’t trust himself to speak out loud. He knew the tremor in his voice would give him away.

_…What’s…wrong..?_

The Spine felt a particularly strong pulse in his core. She was worried about him, even in this practically lifeless state!

_It’s nothing. I’m fine._

_…Please…don’t…lie…to me…_

Glancing over, he saw her head had fallen to one side, so that she could just see the edge of his table. She had noticed the oil-spattered paper and even though she could barely think, she had understood its significance. She really was amazing.

 _A… friend of mine died a long time ago,_ he explained. _I should be used to it by now, but every time I remember it, I-_ He couldn’t finish, because a sob had forced its way out of his throat. He clapped a hand to his mouth with a soft clank, desperately trying to throttle down his tears.

_…Why…are…you…trying…not…to…cry..?_

_It’s my job to look out for everyone. I have to stay in control._

_…All…the time?_ There was such deep empathy in her voice that The Spine nearly gave in again to the gaping maw of grief that gnawed on his circuits. But instead he swallowed the excess oil that was lubricating his throat and turned back to the accounts. Numbers brought peace, if you worked with them for long enough.

 

Despite his wife’s insistence, Peter V had not gone to bed. This was because his son had demanded he come along to Workroom 5 with him, even though it was gone midnight.

‘Son, can’t this wait until morning?’ Peter V asked wearily, his bad leg playing up more than usual because he had over-used it earlier.

‘Sorry, Dad, but I’ve got to discuss it with someone.’

His son towed him inside the workroom and over to one of the benches. A great quantity of paper was spread out neatly across it, all the edges carefully aligned. Peter V wondered why these were so neat, when nothing else Peter VI owned was. The younger Walter gestured at the papers and his father bent forward to examine them. He soon realised that they were all about Piston. There were circuit diagrams and blue prints and copious reams of notes in his son’s awful handwriting that he had most certainly inherited from his father.

‘So?’ he asked, failing to grasp what his offspring’s point was.

‘Becile’s elephants,’ Peter VI said, as though that explained everything.

‘What?’

‘Oh, Dad! What happened to the guys that controlled them?’

‘They got turned into zombies and were fused into the machines.’

‘Exactly. You’d think green matter was all about death, wouldn’t you?’

‘Well it seems a safe bet. But then...’ he mused, stroking his chin.

‘What about Piston?’ his son finished. ‘That’s what I wondered. Her core’s erratic, as we both know, but apart from that, it doesn’t seem to be acting the way I’d expect green matter to. If green matter turns people into zombies, how did it bring Piston to life?’

‘I take it you have a theory?’ Peter V asked, his own active brain already busy, turning over the possibilities.

‘Yes, I do,’ Peter VI said.


	28. Kidnapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Advance warning: I will be on holiday next Sunday and because I will be camping in the middle of a field, I won't be able to update next Sunday. It will probably be Monday.
> 
> Also, these last few chapters will be quite a bit longer than my average. We're not far off now!

By degrees, Piston felt the lethargy leaving her as her core increased its output. Once again, she was struck by how easy it would have been for her to slip away without caring, or even really noticing. Had she even wished for everything to stop?

It was the second morning after she had been brought back home before she could do more than raise her hand, but at last she was able to get gingerly to her feet and walk stiffly into the hall, after waiting for her stabilisers to recalibrate themselves. Rabbit, whose turn it had been to watch over her, tried to lend her his arm, but she waved it away. She wanted to do this herself. She walked to the foot of the stairs and then stopped. Peering up the flight, she felt her heart sink. Just the thought of walking all the way up them to get to her room made her feel tired again.

‘I-I-I could c-carry you u-up,’ Rabbit suggested, helpfully.

Piston smiled at him. ‘No, that’s all right. I only wanted my violin.’

‘I-I-I’ll get it for you.’

Before she could protest, he was gone, bounding up the stairs like his namesake. As she waited for Rabbit to come back, she heard voices coming from Annie’s study. She shuffled over at rapped on the doorframe.

Adrian looked up and then sprang to his feet.

‘Piston!’ he cried, a great wave of relief breaking over his face. ‘You’re up! How are you feeling?’

‘A lot better,’ she said. ‘Thank you for helping me. Again.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ he said casually. ‘Anyone would’ve done the same.’

‘Are you sure you should be up?’ Annie asked, pausing in her knitting to peer closely at Piston. ‘Your eyes are still quite dim.’

‘I’m still a bit tired,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t think I can stand anymore lying around.’

Then there was a series of loud thuds that signalled Rabbit’s return with the violin.

'Can I hear you play?' Adrian asked her suddenly.

Piston blinked, then smiled. 'Of course!'

 

‘Adrian? Can I have a word with you?’

‘Of course, Mrs Walter.’

‘I’ve told you, dear, call me Annie.’

She led him into her study and picked up a multicoloured ball of wool and her needles.

‘You’ve noticed, haven’t you?’ she said, without preamble.

‘Noticed what?’ he inquired, though he had a suspicion he knew what she meant.

‘How The Spine feels about Piston, dear.’

Adrian slid several inches further down into his seat and ran his hand through his hair.

‘Yes, I have.’

Annie reached forward and patted his hand.

‘If it’s any consolation, he’d rather die than hurt either of you.’

‘So…’ Adrian swallowed. ‘It’s up to Piston then, really, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Annie agreed. ‘I suppose it-’

There was a tap on the doorframe. Adrian looked round and there she was. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes had rather less fire in them than they usually did, but she was awake and walking around and Adrian felt a tremendous surge of relief. Suddenly, his worries seemed inconsequential. As long as Piston was all right, that was all that mattered.

 

‘Hey Spine!’

‘Good evening, Katja. You look wonderful, as ever.’ It was true. Katja was one of the few, lucky women who had exactly the right figure for leather trousers.

‘Aw, thanks Spine. You look amazing, too!’

They sat together at a table in the corner. It wasn’t the same bar he had used to meet Daphne in: by common consent they had decided to avoid that place. Neither of them wanted to meet Daphne or, possibly worse, Brianna. Instead, they were in a slightly less snooty, rather edgier place that Katja had introduced him to. If he was honest, The Spine felt much more comfortable here than in any place he had gone to with Daphne. The patrons of this particular establishment seemed to share Katja’s opinions on robots: the looks directed at him were curious and interested, but not hostile.

Katja sipped her double-vodka-and-coke.

‘How’s Piston?’

‘Doing better now. Thanks for asking.’

‘What about going outside?’

The Spine tilted his hand in mid-air.

‘She hasn’t been out very much,’ he admitted. ‘But then, she never did.’

‘She’s the robot from London, isn’t she?’ Katja all but whispered.

The Spine hesitated, then nodded. He wasn’t surprised Katja had worked it out. Harriet had. And Katja had been hearing about Piston ever since they’d started dating. The Spine realised belatedly that he had been uncharacteristically thoughtless in the respect, but Katja had never mentioned it.

‘Yeah, she is.’

‘Poor girl,’ Katja sighed. ‘It’s so screwed up, what happened to her. She was forced to do it, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Bastards.’ This was said which such venomous loathing that The Spine blinked in surprise and an extra puff of steam issued from the vents on his back.

‘You didn’t know the guys, did you?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she snorted. ‘But I know their type. They like to use people.’ There was an entire novel’s worth of history behind that sentence, he could tell, but he didn’t press any further. He didn’t want to pry.

‘Actually,’ she continued. ‘Thar reminds me. I’ve got some news for Piston.’

‘For Piston?’ he said, startled.

‘Yep.’

‘What is it?’

‘I found the guys who did it.’

‘You mean-’

‘The ones who beat her up, yeah.’

‘How did you do that?’

Katja smiled, rather unpleasantly.

‘Sorry, I can’t say. Just tell her not to worry. There’s _no way_ they’ll be bothering her again.’ There was a horrible sort of finality in the heavy stress she laid on those two words.

‘Katja, you didn’t kill them?’ He grabbed her hand, harder than he meant to his panic, loathsome memories of his own war service coming back to him.

‘Ow! No! What do you take me for? Besides, _I_ didn’t do anything to them. A friend of mine sorted it out. He just made sure Big Terry and his pals are finally gonna get to spend all that time they’ve accumulated.’ Her lip curled. ‘Big T’ll be lucky if he gets out before the sun implodes.’

The Spine was silent for a long moment. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about this. On the one hand, it was wonderful to know that the sadists who had so hurt Piston were behind bars, but why had Katja done this for them? Eventually, he had to ask.

‘Thanks,’ he said sincerely. ‘I know we’ll all feel safer knowing that, but…’ He trailed off, unsure how to proceed without sounding ungrateful.

‘But why did I do it?’ Katja said, a grim smile twisting her mouth again. ‘Well, I gotta admit, I didn’t go looking for him. Mate of mine heard one of Terry’s boys talking about this metal girl they beat up and I put two and two together. I know a few people he’s hurt and we decided it was time he got what was comin’ to him.’ There was a slightly defiant look in her eyes, as if she was daring The Spine to comment on her ethics.

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

And just like that, the tense moment was gone. Katja grinned properly now.

‘Excellent,’ said she. ‘Want another drink?’

 

‘Now, was that two time or three time?’

Piston’s face plates shifted as she thought hard. This exercise was proving tricky.

‘Two..?’

‘Sure about that?’

‘No…’

‘Well, that’s a shame, because you’re right.’

‘Am I?’ Piston brightened up. Maybe she _was_ getting the hang of this after all.

‘Yes. Keep this up and you’ll walk the exam, no problem. Now let’s try another one.’ Harriet swivelled back round on the piano stool and set her fingers on the keys once more. They weren’t in the living room or the rehearsal room, but a small, dusty, infrequently used room near the top of the house, where they were less likely to be interrupted. Harriet had arranged for Piston to take her Grade One violin exam in a few weeks’ time and she wanted her student to be able to concentrate without Rabbit pulling faces at her. As Harriet began to play, her fingers dancing across the keys, Piston concentrated.

_It’s three time this time!_ she thought, now certain of the difference, and was about to say so when there was a horrifying and unbelievably loud twanging sound from inside the piano. Harriet stopped, but not before a couple of dull thuds had punctuated the last few notes.

‘Damn,’ Harriet said. ‘Are you all right?’

For Piston was now pressed flat against the wall, staring wide-eyed all around her as though expecting a bomb to drop.

‘What was that?’ she cried, her eyes blazing with light.

‘It was just a string breaking,’ Harriet said. ‘I know it _sounds_ like the world’s caving in, but isn’t, I promise.’ She beckoned Piston over and opened the lid of the piano to show her the arrangement of strings and hammers inside. ‘You see? That one’s snapped.’ She pointed. ‘We’ll have to leave the lesson there, I’m afraid, and I’d better see if I can fix this before I leave. Do you have any spare piano wire?’

Piston shrugged.

‘I’ll ask The Spine,’ she said.

_Spine?_

_…_

_…Spine?_

_Oh, sorry Piston, I was tuning my guitar. What’s up?_

_Do we have any spare piano wire?_

_What happened?_

_A string broke when Harriet was playing._

_Oh! That’s a relief. I thought Rabbit had gone back to… never mind. What size do you need?_

‘What size do we need?’

‘Hmm… 0.35.’

_0.35_

_I’ll bring some up right away._

‘He’s bringing it up,’ Piston relayed to Harriet, who asked

‘What are you grinning about?’

‘Am I?’ Piston said, feeling her face and realising that she was, indeed, grinning. ‘Oh. I don’t know really.’

‘It’s The Spine, isn’t it?’ Harriet asked, now smirking herself.

‘No.’

The violin teacher raised one curved brow, so that it disappeared amongst the froth of lace that surmounted today’s hat, a miniature bowler affair in deep violet.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, if you say so,’ Harriet said, turning back to the piano and carefully fishing out the broken wire.

 

A few minutes later, there was the sound of heavy feet in the corridor outside and The Spine’s tall, lanky frame came through the empty doorway. He tipped his hat to both the ladies.

‘Your piano wire,’ he said in his deep voice, as rich as millionaire’s shortbread, holding up a silver coil.

‘Oh, thanks Spine,’ Harriet said. ‘I’m sorry for breaking it.’

‘Don’t worry about it. We don’t use this piano very often. If we did, it would probably be in better repair.’ His eyes were on Piston as he continued ‘Would you like me to do it, Harriet?’

‘Would you mind? I don’t have any gloves or tools with me.’

‘My pleasure,’ he said and set to work.

In much less time than Piston had expected, the new wire was fixed in place, but then there followed a lengthy process in which Harriet and The Spine tested every single wire in the instrument to make sure everything was still in tune.

‘It’s so much easier doing this with someone who has perfect pitch,’ Harriet said, pressing middle C.

‘Thank you,’ The Spine replied as he tightened the string by a minute fraction. ‘Try it again. Perfect.’

Piston was sitting on an old chest of drawers that had been stored up here, but was miraculously not broken, watching the two of them work. Instead of being bored, she was quite enjoying it. She too could hear the tiny differences between the off notes and the correct ones and it pleased her to think that she might also have perfect pitch. She put her head on one side and her eyes lingered on the sleek, ebony-clad robot before her. His hair, a wig she had recently learned, held in place by rows of tiny magnets that corresponded with some set into his skull, was falling forward from underneath his hat and Piston felt a surprising desire to go over and tuck it back again. In fact, she stood up without meaning to and hastily sat back down again, hoping the others hadn’t noticed.

They didn’t seem to have. They were both concentrating on the internal guts of the piano. Piston sighed in relief and was shocked to see how much steam issued forth. She quickly did an internal diagnostic check, wondering if her boiler was losing efficiency or her core was playing up again. But all of her systems seemed to be running perfectly. What could be wrong, then?

Unbidden, Harriet’s earlier comment played itself back in her mind

_‘It’s The Spine, isn’t it?’_

Could that be the case? Could he be affecting her like this? If just talking to him made her smile, and here Piston admitted that she had not been totally honest with either herself or Harriet a moment ago, then was it so unlikely that looking at him could increase her steam pressure, could make her want… to touch him?

This time, she could feel the extra heat her core gave off and the corresponding increase in steam. A giggle started in her voice box and she only just managed to hold it in. She remembered Adelaide asking if The Spine was her beau. She had replied in the negative, saying that she didn’t love anyone, but now she wondered if that was true.

 

‘Oh no,’ Annie sighed. ‘Why did this have to happen now?’

It was two days before Piston’s exam and her power core had decided that this was the most opportune moment to surge. Consequently, she was working her excess energy off in the garden with Rabbit and The Jon, playing noisy, high-speed games of tag. Annie privately wondered whether the garden was going to take much more of this. Aside from the clumps of trees and bushes that lined the driveway, it was beginning to look like a farm in the 1930s mid-west, all dust and rock. Her marigolds would certainly never be the same again.

‘At least they’re not doing this in the house,’ The Spine said, without much conviction. ‘This isn’t quite as expensive to repair.’

‘True,' she said. 'But it's more time-consuming.'

‘Just get Piston to practice some more,’ her son suggested. ‘That’ll help.’

‘She’s already perfect, though. And Harriet said she should really take the time to relax. We don’t know how nerves will affect her. What if she starts barking in the exam?’

‘Shouldn’t she get special consideration for that?’ Peter V asked. ‘Do they know she has Tourette’s?’

‘Harriet said she told them, but still…’

‘You worry too much, honey. She’ll be fine. Like you said, she’s perfect already.’

‘True…’

‘Look, we’d better go if we’re gonna make our flight.’

‘You’re being awfully secretive about this. I still don’t understand why you need to go to Africa all of a sudden.’

‘Mom, we need to test out a theory of mine, but I don’t wanna say anything until we’re sure.’

There was the sound of a car horn from somewhere down the drive. Taxi drivers refused to come right up to Walter Manor these days, not since the incident with The Jon’s homemade form of cheesy transport.

‘Guys!’ Peter VI called. ‘We’re off!’

The game of tag broke up, Piston shouting ‘Rootless in the wind!’ as usual. They all came charging over, making a race of it. Three automata slid to a stop in front of them, sending a cloud of dust up into the air.

As the humans spluttered and spat out bits of dry soil, The Spine gave a heavy sigh. He helped brush the worst of the dirt off of half his family, frowning sternly at the other, mostly unrepentant, half.

‘Sorry!’ Piston said, darting forward to help.

‘It’s fine!’ Peter VI said, holding up his hands and backing away. ‘I can manage.’

There was another honk from down the hill.

‘Right, goodbye, you lot,’ Peter V said hastily, hugging them all in turn. ‘We’ll be back as soon we can.’

‘Bye!’ Peter VI said, doing the same. Then they both extricated themselves from the complicated bundle of hugs, snatched up their luggage and ran down the drive.

Annie looked after them, blinking back a tear.

‘Spine?’ she said. ‘Would you take them the bag they’ve forgotten?’

‘Of course,’ The Spine said, picking up the holdall that had both men’s clothes in and setting off after them with his bouncy run.

Piston fidgeted. Now they had stopped playing tag, she was feeling restless again. She wanted to poke Rabbit, cry ‘It’ and run off, but she didn’t think that would be the right thing to do, because she was also feeling sad that the Peters were leaving and she knew everyone else would be too. As she stared into the distance, wondering how else she could work off her energy, she saw a familiar figure on the rise next to the house. Her face plates moved aside in a smile and she strode briskly across the front garden to greet her friend.

‘Adelaide!’

The girl turned and grinned when she saw the robot. ‘Piston! How delightful to see you again!’

‘And you! How have you been?’

Adelaide chuckled. ‘Oh, exactly the same as always. I hope you are in good health.’

‘All my systems are operational,’ Piston said. ‘Apart from my core, of course.’

‘What’s wrong with your… erm, ‘core’?’

‘It’s producing too much power and it makes me hyper.’

Adelaide nodded vaguely and then changed the subject. ‘So, has anything happened between you and The Spine yet?’

‘No! Well… I don’t know really. But I’ve been out a few times with Adrian…’

‘Who is Adrian?’

Piston explained, somewhat awkwardly, how she and Adrian had met. Adelaide gasped in horror when she heard what had happened to her. Her eyes opened wide and she went even paler than usual.

‘If I were you, I would not leave the house again without an escort!’ she exclaimed.

‘Well, I haven’t really,’ Piston admitted.

‘Oh, but it is rather romantic, how he saved you,’ Adelaide continued. Then she looked penetratingly at the robot in front of her. ‘Do you wish it had been The Spine who saved you?’ she asked.

‘I’m just happy that anyone helped me,’ Piston said truthfully.

Her friend was about to carry on, when she stared at something over the automaton’s shoulder. She blinked several times and then said, ‘Is  _that_ him?’

Piston craned her neck round and saw The Spine coming back up the road, now free of the Peters’ luggage.

‘Yeah, that’s him.’

Adelaide giggled and Piston found herself joining in. Then of course she shouted and Adelaide stared at her in alarm.

‘Sorry,’ Piston said hastily. ‘I just do that sometimes. I can’t control it.’

‘Oh… But he certainly is  _very_ handsome. I am most envious of you.’

 

Annie watched The Spine coming back, grateful that he had managed to prevent her husband and son from wearing the same sets of clothes for their entire trip. They probably wouldn’t have noticed, but everyone around them would begin to. Especially somewhere as hot as Africa.

‘A-A-Annie?’ Rabbit asked.

‘Yes, dear?’

‘What’s P-Piston doing?’ He gestured and they all turned to look just as Piston began to giggle and then shout.

‘She’s talking to someone…’ Annie said, frowning.

‘But there’s no one there,’ The Jon pointed out. This was worrying, because if even The Jon couldn’t see anyone, then who on earth was Piston talking to? Was she hallucinating? Could robots hallucinate? Annie didn’t know.

‘I saw her doing that before,’ The Spine told them. ‘The first time she had a power surge. I forgot to mention it.’

‘Do you think we should say something?’ Annie asked.

‘…I don’t think so,’ her shiny metal guru said. ‘She’s already aware of how different she is, even compared to us, and it’s not doing her any harm.’

‘At least she’s not breaking furniture, getting her hair tangled in curtain rails or upsetting my rockery,’ Annie said. They laughed.

‘Are we gonna rehearse today, Spine?’ The Jon inquired, peering up his brother with his enormous blue eyes.

‘Y-yeah! I’ve got an idea or a n-n-new song!’ Rabbit glitched excitedly. The robots hurtled back indoors, followed by Annie, shaking her head and smiling. It was amazing how the three of them never failed to cheer her up. She would grab her knitting bag and then sit in on their rehearsal. Maybe Piston could come and join them in a bit with her violin.

 

‘Confirm positions of Peters V and VI, over.’

‘Plane has taken off, sir. They’re out of our hair.’

‘Good. Do we have a clear field?’

‘Surrounding area free of civilians. No hikers, no cars.’

‘Where are the family?’

‘Inside the house with the robots. They’re playing music.’

‘And the target?’

‘Outside on the rise next to the house. She’s… talking to herself!’

‘Vanzetti, are you in position? Over.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘All right, let’s do this. Remember, we need split second timing. Vanzetti, cut the power.’

 

Piston said goodbye and Adelaide watched her walk back towards the house. She couldn’t believe she had found a friend after all this time alone. Smiling, she turned back to the view over the city, but stopped as something caught her eye. Unlike Piston, Adelaide knew exactly who had the right to be on someone else’s property and she was certain that men in balaclavas carrying rifles were not supposed to be here. Desperately, she tried to warn her friend.

‘PIISTOOON!!!’

But it was too late. Piston’s body jerked and then crumpled to the ground, devoid of life.

 

The rehearsal room had no windows so that daylight couldn’t spoil the effect when the lighting plots were being worked out. It was also, for the same reason, one of the few rooms that actually had a door. This meant that when the lights went off, they were plunged into almost total darkness. For a few moments, it was alleviated by the glowing eyes of the robots and they played two more bars of ‘The Suspender Man’ out of sheer momentum. Annie sighed. Why did a power cut have to happen now? At least it was only the lights and the other basics that were connected to the mains. Everything else was powered by their own generators to save money. But then the almost darkness became total as three pairs of glowing optics suddenly winked off and there was a huge crash as three metal chassis hit the ground at once.

For a moment, Annie couldn’t move. Then she leapt to her feet and dashed blindly over to the fallen robots.

‘Rabbit? Spine? Jon?’ she cried desperately, but there was no reply. _Light, I need light!_ She thought and hurried to the door, tripping over her chair as she did so. The hallway outside did have windows, so once she had flung open the door, she could see what had happened.

The robots were lying crumpled on the floor, all in a tangle. By some miracle, The Spine had managed to move his precious black guitar round onto his back before he had fallen, but The Jon’s would never be the same again. Rabbit’s accordion was looking distinctly worse for wear too. Annie crouched down next to them, shaking each automaton in turn, but to no avail. Then she heard the sound of a large car engine outside and ran to the window in the corridor to look, hoping wildly that the Peters had come back after all and that they would be able to sort all this out.

To her great surprise, the vehicle in front of the house was a huge truck. It roared off down the drive, but not before she had caught a glimpse of the driver. He was wearing a balaclava. Dread bubbled through her. Something was very wrong indeed. Then she remembered Piston, who might have collapsed the way the others had. Piston… who had been outside and who was now no longer visible. Annie ran along the corridor, thudded down the hall stairs, flung open the front door and dashed out. The truck had already disappeared down the hill and Piston wasn’t outside the house. Although she was fairly sure she knew where Piston was, Annie went back inside and headed for the Hall of Wires. She almost never went in there, but maybe QWERTY could confirm for her whether Piston had come back inside the house or not. But all the screens were dark and the lights were off. QWERTY had succumbed too.

In despair, Annie returned to the rehearsal room.

As she stepped inside, there was a groan and two blue lights winked on.

‘Annie?’

‘Jon, honey, it’s all right.’ She ran over and gave him an enormous hug, which he carefully returned. The whirring sounds of a robot working suddenly increased and four more photoreceptors glowed with life. ‘You’re all right,’ she said, heaving a sigh of relief.

‘W-w-what happened?’ Rabbit asked. ‘Noooooo! My accordion!’

‘My guitar!’ The Jon chimed in.

‘Annie, are you all right?’ That was The Spine, of course.

‘I’m fine. But QWERTY was affected too.’

‘What about Piston?’

Annie very nearly burst into tears, but her grief was swamped by the upsurge of a wave of anger unlike anything she had ever known.

‘Someone’s taken her,’ she said and her voice was grim and hard. Rabbit and the Jon shut up immediately and all three stared at her.

‘What?’ The Spine said.

‘Just now. There was a huge truck outside and the man driving it was wearing a balaclava. I couldn’t see Piston. They took her, I’m sure of it.’

‘Who would do that?’ Rabbit sounded puzzled and hurt. ‘And why?’

‘They can’t take away our sister!’ The Jon cried. ‘She’s _family!_ ’ Automatically, they all looked at The Spine for reassurance. In the mingled glow of six photoreceptors, he was frowning deeply.

‘To knock us and QWERTY out like that, it had to be an EMP,’ he said. ‘And whoever it was took her for a reason. Maybe because of what happened in London.’

‘Someone with access to a weapon like that,’ Annie said slowly. ‘Who would want a weapon like Piston…’

‘And who had the training and resources to pull this off…’

‘Can only be…’ They stared at each other, horrified.

‘What?’ clamoured Rabbit and The Jon. ‘Who was it?’

‘The army,’ they both said. ‘It was the army.’ There was a very long silence as all three robots recalled their own army days and then Annie spoke once more.

‘No,’ she said firmly.

‘It’s got to be them,’ The Spine said.

‘That’s not what I meant. I am not going to let them get away with this. They got more than enough use out of you three and it wasn’t them that paid for it. I _will not_ let it happen to Piston too.’ She was standing up now and her permed hair and wrinkles no longer made her look like a lady edging towards the elderly. She looked terrifying.

‘Boys, _we are going to get her back!_ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have got EMPs a bit wrong. I'd apologise for this, but I really don't care.


	29. Conscious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm so late with this, guys. Turned out to be a harder chapter to write than I thought. But after this, there's only two more chapters to go! Thanks for sticking with it.

A grumbling roar met her audioreceptors as they came back online and vibrations ran all the way through her. Piston opened her eyes, their glow illuminating the inside of a large truck. Several sinister figures in black gazed down at her, their faces distorted by the emerald light from below. Memories of that dreadful night in the alleyway sparked through her neurocircuits and Piston tried to scramble to her feet. But though her body twitched and flailed, the straps that secured her to the floor of the van would not give.

One of the figures raised a black box, a bit like a phone, to his mouth. ‘Sir, the robot has reactivated.’ His voice was detached, clinical and it sent a tremor of dread through Piston’s systems that was amplified by the vibrations from the truck.

‘Already? That might be a problem. Is it damaged?’

‘Hard to say, sir. It’s moving, but the restraints seem to be working.’

‘Good. Keep watching it and report any changes.’

‘Any sign of pursuit, sir?’

‘None, but we’re not far from the house. If those other robots start up as quickly as this one did, they could be on our tails any minute.’

Piston strained against her bonds again, desperately hoping that the family were indeed on their way to rescue her.

 

Unfortunately, they were not. After several minutes of fiery determination, despondency had set in.

‘B-B-But how are we going to rescue her?’ Rabbit asked.

Annie frowned. ‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted. ‘But there must be _something_ we can do.’

‘B-But we couldn’t stop them last t-t-time,’ Rabbit pointed out. ‘W-w-when they came for us.’ The Jon shuddered slightly.

‘We should call the Peters,’ The Spine said.

‘They’re still on the plane though,’ Annie sighed. ‘They will be for hours yet. By the time they’ve got back, Piston could be anywhere.’

‘Then we need to find out where she is,’ The Spine decided. ‘Once we know that, we can see about getting her back.’ Steam was venting out of his back and his photoreceptors blazed with barely supressed anger. How _dare_ they do this to Piston, who had already had far more than her fair share of abuse.

‘How do we d-do that?’

‘Well, QWERTY might be able to help. I know the Peters were developing a way to find you four in an emergency if anyone went missing again,’ Annie mused. ‘But I don’t know if they got it working.’

‘You could ask Katja,’ The Jon piped up. ‘She found those guys last time. She might be able to help now.’

‘I’ll phone her,’ The Spine said, standing up.

‘Call Adrian while you’re there, dear. He should know and he might be able to help. I don’t know how, mind you, but you never know.’

While The Spine went off to make the calls, his internal wires twisting at the thought of telling Adrian that they had lost the girl he loved into the clutches of the US army, the other two robots shot up to the Hall of Wires to persuade QWERTY to help them.

It wasn’t easy. The operating system was in a particularly bad mood after the EMP had shut him down and he was currently in the middle of a reboot.

‘But, QWERTY, this is Piston we’re talking about!’ The Jon told him sternly. ‘You _have_ to help!’

‘NO. I NEED FOUR HOURS TO FINISH THIS REBOOT AND CHECK FOR DAMAGE.’

‘C-come on!’

‘FOUR HOURS AND FIVE MINUTES.’

‘What? You’re adding time now! Bad QWERTY!’

‘THE MORE YOU DISTRACT ME, THE LONGER IT WILL TAKE. FOUR HOURS AND TEN MINUTES.’

_Any luck boys? Annie._

_A-A-Annniieeeeee! QWERTY won’t help!_

_Spine, will you sort him out?_

_I’m still talking to Katja. I’ll be up soon._

_What are you doing, Annie?_

_I’m looking through the Peters’ notes, Jon. See if they’ve got anything to help. Tell QWERTY to behave. Annie._

‘Q-Q-QWERTY! Annie says you’ve got to behave!’

‘SHE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT COMPUTERS. FOUR HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES. STOP THAT!’ For Rabbit had started tugging on the loops of wire festooning the room.

‘Sorry QWERTY,’ The Jon said. ‘You know how often Rabbit breaks things. He just can’t help himself.’

‘YOU’RE BLUFFING. YOU WOULDN’T DO THAT. YOU NEED ME.’

‘W-w-we don’t need you if you won’t help us.’

‘COMPUTING PROBABLITY OF BLUFF…’ There was a series of bleeping sounds and when QWERTY’s voice sounded it again, there was a vein of fear in the mechanical whine. ‘PROBABILITY LESS THAN 25%... ALL RIGHT, I’LL HELP. WITHOUT SYSTEM REPAIRS, REBOOT WILL FINISH IN ONE HOUR AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES.’

‘Thank you QWERTY!’ The Jon cried and hugged the screen. The little green face blinked in surprise.

Rabbit was less pleased. ‘That’s still too loooong!!’ he moaned. ‘We need Piston back nooow!!’

 

The Spine gave a huge sigh of relief. ‘Thanks Katja,’ he said. ‘I owe you one.’

‘Just buy me a drink next time you see me. Which is gonna be in about half an hour, ‘cos I’m coming up there to help you guys.’

‘What?’

‘If my friends find anything out, they’ll call me. I’ve got out of a few situations myself. I can help.’

The lubricant in his throat appeared to have congealed. The Spine swallowed hard to clear the blockage and blinked to prevent his optics from leaking oil. ‘Thank you so much,’ he said, his voice horse and even deeper than normal.

‘Glad to help. Right, I’d better go. I need to make a few calls of my own.’ She rang off.

The Spine put the receiver back down and looked up Adrian’s number. He suddenly found his lips required lubrication. He licked them. This was a conversation he would have done almost _anything_ to avoid, but Adrian had a right to know. As he dialled the number, the fingers of his left hand tapped restlessly on the hall table. His hopes that the man would be out were dashed when a voice said,

‘Hello?’

‘Adrain? It’s The Spine.’

‘Oh, hi Spine. What’s up?’

The Spine took a huge breath, swallowed again and said, ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.’

‘Is it Piston?’ Adrian asked at once, his voice rising wildly. ‘Has she been hurt again? Has something happened?’

‘She’s… she’s…’ Just trying to get the words out was excruciating. ‘She’s been…’

‘What?’ Adrian demanded.

‘She’s been kidnapped.’

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line. Then The Spine heard Adrian say, ‘K-kidnapped? By who?’

‘We think it was the army.’

‘The army? What the hell would they want with-’ Adrian fell silent. Then, ‘Oh.’

‘We’re gonna try to get her back,’ The Spine told him, wishing he could sound more reassuring.

‘From the _army?_ ’

‘I know. But we have to try!’ His voice cracked on the last word.

‘How did it happen, anyway?’ It was the question The Spine had been dreading.

‘We were rehearsing indoors and Piston was outside. They-they set off an EMP. Knocked us all out. Annie saw the truck drive off.’

‘I’m coming over,’ Adrian said suddenly. ‘I want to help.’

‘This could be dangerous,’ The Spine protested.

‘I don’t care,’ Adrian said mulishly and hung up.

 

Katja and Adrian were as good as their word. Within three quarters of an hour, both of them had been admitted to the council of war being held in the living room and filled in on all the details that there hadn’t been time to go through on the phone. Adrian was pale, his forehead creased with worry and his hands gripped the arm of his chair so hard that the tips of his fingers were white. Katja was lounging in hers with her DMs up on the new coffee table and it was a mark of just how worried Annie was that she made no comment on it. Instead, she was knitting, her needles clicking so fast she could have been hired as a percussionist in a reggae band. It helped focus her mind if she kept her hands occupied.

‘So, how long ‘til your computer can search for her?’ Katja asked.

‘Just under an hour…’ The Jon sighed. ‘And we can’t work out how to save her unless we know where she is.’

‘Not necessarily,’ The Spine said. He was staring at the floor.

Everyone looked at him hopefully.

‘What do you mean, dear?’ Annie asked when he said no more.

‘I mean,’ he continued, sighing, ‘that this isn’t the first time we’ve come up against an army. We can use what we know.’

Both Rabbit and The Jon turned startled optics on him, then sighed and nodded.

‘D-do you guys remember that op near D-D-D-Dak T-To?’ Rabbit asked. His blue eye was twitching.

‘But that didn’t work,’ The Jon said in a strangled whisper.

‘Dak To?’ Katja looked curiously at them, her eyebrows raised.

Annie stopped knitting. ‘Are you sure you want to go into this?’

‘If it helps save Piston,’ The Spine said firmly.

‘Hang on.’ Adrian finally spoke. ‘We’re going to use a plan the army came up with, against the army? Won’t they see straight through it?’

‘Not if we do it right,’ Katja said firmly. ‘Tell us how it works.’

The Spine, with a little help from his brothers, explained how the operation was supposed to have worked.

‘You want to do _that?_ ’ Annie asked, her eyes wide. ‘Are you _insane?_ ’

‘It wasn’t our idea,’ The Jon said. ‘It was the army’s…’

Annie’s face softened. ‘I know, dear. But are you sure you want to try it again?’ All three robots nodded fervently. ‘And what about you two? You’re under no obligation to do this.’

‘I’m not sitting around while you do all the work!’ Adrian protested. ‘I need to help Piston!’

‘And I’m a thrill-seeker,’ Katja said lazily. ‘Snatching a robot from under the army’s nose? That’s a thrill!’

‘Okay then,’ Annie said. ‘We do it!’

 

‘What do you want?’

The dark figures made no reply. They continued to watch her steadily, their eyes glinting eerily in the light from her own optics.

Piston shivered, increasing the vibrations that were still shuddering through the truck. She tried again. ‘Please, tell me what’s happening. Who are you? Where are you taking me?’ Her voice rose shrilly and the guards looked at each other.

Static crackled through the air and a man said, ‘Keep it quiet! We can’t risk anyone hearing it.’

As soon as she heard that, Piston sucked in a breath that stretched the stitches of her bellows. Then she let rip.

The scream pierced through the van as if the metal was cotton and burst out into the San Diego night, puncturing the eardrums of the guards en route. It rattled windows, set dogs howling in fright and woke napping children up with screams of their own. Everyone in the vicinity clapped their hands over their ears and looked widely around. They saw the large black truck career across the road and narrowly miss crashing into a traffic light. It zoomed wildly over a junction, nearly smashing into several other cars. Phones were whipped out of pockets and the number ‘911’ was keyed in by a least a dozen sets of trembling fingers.

Inside the truck, the guards were flung against the walls as they screamed, clutching at their heads. The radio produced a quantity of crackling curses.

‘ _What the fuck is going on?!_ ’ the unseen man in the front seat cried through the static, but only Piston heard him.

The noise coming out of her mouth was so loud, Piston had nearly stopped, but when she saw the effect it had, she put everything she had into it. She felt the barking trying to break through and redoubled her efforts. But she was running out of breath and she knew the moment she paused, she would lose control of her own voice.

Just as sirens began to wail somewhere outside, the scream died away and as soon as Piston had dragged in a lungful of air, the barking began. Fuelled by the terror that was filling her, the sound was almost as loud as her scream. But for Piston, it meant the loss of the last thing she had control of. She couldn’t move her body and now she could no longer speak. All she could do now was wait and, as hoarse barks ripped themselves from her throat and oily tears sprang from her eyes, pray that her family would come for her before it was too late.

 

A burst of rock music filled the quiet living room and Katja rummaged in her pockets to find her phone. A grin flashed across her face as she clocked the number and she answered, ‘Hey, Claw. What you got for me?’ She left the room and the others looked after her, then exchanged glances. Would it be good news?

‘Annie,’ The Spine said quietly. ‘Something’s bothering me.’

‘What is it?’ Annie had put her knitting down again and all five of them were bending their ears towards the doorway.

‘They must have been watching the house for some time, right?’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Annie agreed, shuddering at the thought.

‘Do you think they tapped into our phone?’

‘Then they’d have heard you phone me and Katja,’ Adrian reasoned. ‘They’ll know we’re going to try to get Piston back!’

‘B-b-but they must have known we’d t-try that,’ Rabbit pointed out. ‘They won’t know w-w-what we’re going to d-do.’

‘No, Adrian’s right,’ The Jon insisted. ‘They’ll be suspicious. They’ll want to know where you are.’

‘We’ll think of something,’ Annie said, trying to reassure them and herself most of all. ‘We just need to make it believable.’ There were a few more moments of tense silence, as everyone turned the half-formed plan over in their minds and tried to eavesdrop on Katja’s phone call.

Then, at last, she came back in, a broad grin on her face.

‘I think we’ve found her,’ she said.

 

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come,’ Colonel Reginald Garcia called and the door swung open to reveal one of his lieutenants.

‘Sir, there’s a woman at the gates, asking for you.’

‘What?’ the colonel roared, jumping to his feet. ‘Who is she? How does she know we’re here? _No one_ should know!’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ the soldier admitted, shuffling further behind the door. ‘She says her name’s Annie Walter and she wants to talk to you.’

‘Walter?’ A vein began to pulse in Garcia’s temple. ‘Damn it!’

‘What shall I tell her, sir?’

‘Tell her… tell her…’ Garcia thought as quickly as possible. He could guess why Mrs Walter was here. ‘Hang on, is there anyone else with her?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Well who, damnit?’

‘One of the robots, sir.’

‘Tell her I’ll see her and bring them here. Make sure they don’t see anything, not even a store cupboard, got it?’ The man saluted and left. Garcia sank back into his chair, stroking his chin. This was bad. He knew the Walters were resourceful, but he hadn’t expected them to find the female robot so quickly. That was one reason they had waited until the husband and son had gone off to Africa. Maybe it was that girl, Katja Andersson, or the boyfriend, Adrian Finchley. Hadn’t one of the reports said something about a phone call and contacts?

He shook himself. _How_ this had happened was something he would deal with later. Right now, his problem was what to do with Mrs Walter. Obviously, she had discovered that it was the army who had taken the London robot and his first task was to find out whether she could prove it. If she could, then something would have to be done. Disposing of the Walters would not go unnoticed, but a quiet detainment might be in order.

Quickly, he tidied his desk of everything but a photo of his wife, his phone and computer and a little brass plaque with his name and rank on it. He didn’t want this busybody to get hold of any more information, even if it was only the date of the next payday. His beefy hand hovered over the telephone for a moment. Should he contact his superiors? No, they might think he was going soft. What damage could one little old lady and her tin man do? If there was a viable threat to the programme, then, and only then, would he call the higher-ups for help. Otherwise, he would manage this easily and tell them about the problem after it had been cleared up. In fact, that would make him look proactive and, combined with the success of this mission, he was bound to be promoted before long. _Brigadier General Garcia._ Didn’t that sound grand?

His head was still full of thoughts of silver stars when there was another knock on his door and his lieutenant ushered in a sweet-faced old lady with a perm and a robot in a top hat, large blue eyes peering out from underneath it. When the colonel smiled at them, he meant it. Dealing with these two would be no problem at all.

 

After Katja’s friends had reported the disturbance made by Piston, and one enterprising acquaintance had instructed their baffled cab driver to ‘follow that truck’, they had had a pretty good idea of the direction the army was taking her in. QWERTY had at last finished his reboot and he and The Spine had cooked up a way of scanning the area around the city for Piston’s energy signature. It had led them here, to a military base that the citizens of San Diego thought long since abandoned. A day to rest and prepare and now they were standing outside the forbidding barbed wire gates, being closely watched by men whose fingers were hovering lovingly over the trigger of their guns.

The young man came back and told the guards to let Annie and The Jon through the gate. In a way, this was the most crucial part of their plan. As long as they could get inside, this would work. At least, they hoped it would.

‘Annie?’

‘Yes, Jon?’

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. You?’

‘I’m scared,’ The Jon admitted, so quietly that Annie only just heard him. ‘Are you scared?’

‘Honestly, I’m shaking in my boots,’ she told him. ‘But at least we know what’s going on. Piston must be out of her wits.’

‘Not for long,’ The Jon said firmly.

‘Stop whispering,’ demanded the soldier escorting them.

‘Young man,’ Annie quavered. ‘You should have a little more respect for your elders. Just because you’re a corporal in the army-’

‘I’m a lieutenant!’ the man barked.

‘In that case, it’s even more important that you set a good example to others.’

The lieutenant gritted his teeth and quickened the pace, striding down the shabby, grey corridors so fast that they had to jog to keep up.

Annie smiled to herself. She knew it was petty, but it felt good to siphon off some of her frustration into somebody else, especially a pushy little brat like this.

‘We’re here,’ the soldier said curtly. He rapped on a door that was just as shabby as all the others, except for the polished brass letters, ‘C.O.’, and opened it, waving them inside.

 

The man at the desk smiled as they entered and this confused Annie for a moment. She had been expecting anger, arrogance or plain denial, but she hadn’t expected the man to be happy at their arrival. It made no difference, however. This man had kidnapped Piston. He wouldn’t be very happy by the time she was finished with him.

She put on a good-natured smile and tottered forward.

‘Mrs Annie Walter?’ he said, standing up and extending a huge hand. ‘I’m Colonel Reginald Garcia.’

‘Now that’s a good, strong name,’ Annie lied. ‘And a strong handshake too.’

‘Please, sit down.’ He waved them to a couple of chairs and they sat, The Jon a little gingerly in case the seat was as in as bad repair as the rest of the building. ‘Now, what can I do for you?’

‘You have taken a family member of ours,’ Annie said, without beating about the bush. ‘We want her back.’

‘I believe you’re mistaken, ma’am,’ the colonel said, still smiling. ‘We haven’t got any women here, let alone one called Walter. And, as a rule, the US Army doesn’t go in much for kidnapping.’

Annie bit down the words _that’s not what I’ve heard_ and said instead, ‘Allow me to rephrase that, er, is it Lieutenant Colonel or just Colonel?’

The smile flickered for a moment. ‘Colonel,’ he said.

‘Lovely,’ Annie said, smiling herself now. ‘Well, you have Piston, one of our robots, locked up here in this godforsaken place and we want her back.’

‘I think you’re mistaken, ma’am.’

‘Oh no. We’re not mistaken. We _know_ you have her and,’ Annie’s smile broadened, ‘we can prove it.’

Garcia’s face went several shades paler, so it was now an ordinary pink colour instead of the cherry-red it had been before. Annie watched this effect with mild interest. Then the man began to laugh.

‘Sorry, ma’am, but even if we did have your robot, there’s nothing you could do about it. Robots ain’t alive and that means you can’t kidnap one. You’ve got no proof, you’re just trying to bluff me into giving it back.’

‘So you admit you have her?’

‘No!’

‘That’s a pity,’ Annie sighed. ‘I had really hoped to go through all this without resorting to blackmail, but it seems I have no choice.’

‘You’re gonna try and blackmail me?’ the colonel asked, still sniggering. ‘Lady, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re inside an army base. You ain’t ever leaving if I don’t want you to.’

‘I beg to differ.’ There was just the faintest hint of steel in Annie’s voice now. ‘You see, CCTV is a wonderful thing and ours is particularly good. My husband designed it himself. It wasn’t affected by the EMP you used to knock out the robots. It caught everything. Including the face of a foolish young man who removed his balaclava before getting into the truck.’ She leant forward. ‘If I were you, I’d reconsider having him in my unit. But first, I’d think long and hard about what the papers would do if they got hold of this story. You see, a family friend is waiting outside the offices of the _San Diego Union-Tribune_ and if he doesn’t hear back from me in… oh, about ten minutes, then he will give them the footage to do what they like with.’ The colonel’s mouth had fallen open and Annie enjoyed the sight immensely. It was deeply satisfying to know that he was now experiencing some of the fear and worry that they had lived through for the last twenty-four hours. ‘It’s your choice, colonel,’ she continued, giving him the sweetest, most innocent smile she could. ‘Either you let Piston go or the whole world knows that America is trying to utilise weapons of mass destruction. Now that _would_ be an embarrassment, wouldn’t it? And all your fault!’

Garcia said, ‘Don’t try and bluff me, lady.’

‘Oh, I’m not bluffing,’ Annie corrected him, politely. ‘You see, I’ve seen the effect of war on these robots and I will _die_ before I let you selfish bastards hurt my family again.’ Her voice dripped with icy venom and the colonel swallowed involuntarily. Behind her, The Jon shivered, his parts rattling against each other.

‘I could have you arrested, you know!’ Garcia blustered.

‘Feel free. If that happens, I _won’t_ be wasting my phone call on our friend. He’ll still go to the _Union-Tribune_.’

‘I can’t make this sort of decision just like that! I’ll need time.’

‘How much?’ Annie asked, all sweetness and light again.

‘Five hours.’

Annie laughed, a dear little old lady laugh that even scared The Jon. ‘You can have _one_ hour, Mr Garcia and not a minute more.’

‘You tell your friend he’s to wait a bit longer!’ Garcia demanded, gritting his teeth.

‘Certainly.’ Annie pulled out her phone and tapped in a number. ‘Adrian? It’s me. Yes, we’re in. We’re giving the colonel an hour to make up his mind. Can you wait that long? Excellent. No, don’t worry. You’ll hear from us soon. Now,’ she said, ringing off, ‘do you think that lieutenant of yours could fetch us some coffee and some water?’

 

‘What do you want with me?’ Piston asked for what felt like the fourteenth time.

‘You are now the property of the United States Army,’ the man said. ‘And we’ll do what we like with you.’ He hadn’t been one of her guards, that much she knew. They had all been whisked off somewhere to have their ears looked at. But she thought she recognised the voice from the soldiers' radio. They had called him 'sir' and now she could see he had little silver leaves on the shoulders of his uniform.

‘Do you even know what the army’s going to do with me?’

‘Yes!’ he said, just a little too quickly. ‘You’re going to be reprogrammed. Now tell us how to access your memory banks.’

A shudder went through her as she remembered the last time she’d been programmed.

‘W-what for?’

‘That’s none of your business,’ he declared.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘No, it isn’t! You are a machine and you will do what you are told! The only people who need to know what you’re going to be used for is the higher-ups! Not you!’

‘Or you?’ she asked.

The man’s lips curled. ‘I’d be very careful how you speak to me, missy.’

‘Oh. I wasn’t trying to be rude.’

At that exact moment, a man walked into the room where Piston was now manacled to the wall. It would have been hard to find anyone who looked less like they belonged on an army base. His long black hair, his brightly coloured robes and his penchant for feathers made him almost the exact opposite of the stuffy guy in front of her in his army fatigues.

‘Hello,’ Piston said, politely. She had no idea who the newcomer was, but he looked much friendlier than the soldier. ‘I like your dress.’

The man jumped as though someone had dropped an ice cube down his back and stared at her in utter astonishment.

‘What’s the matter?’ she inquired, concerned.

‘Who are you talking to?’ the soldier demanded.

‘Him,’ Piston said. She gestured with head towards the newcomer. She would have used her hands, but they were encircled with thick straps and pulled tight against the grey brickwork.

‘Very funny,’ the soldier snarled. ‘There’s no one there.’

‘Of course there is. Oh! Where are you going?’ For the man in robes had practically sprinted back towards the door. He vanished through it and Piston stared. She had never seen anyone leave a room without opening the door first. But then, there weren’t many doors at Walter Manor. Maybe if you lived with them all the time, there was a trick to it.

Then the door actually did open and another man, this time with a huge, red face, strode in.

‘Report, Major!’ he barked.

‘She’s been talking to people who aren’t there, sir,’ the major replied, saluting.

‘What?’

‘Just now, she was talking to someone… and there… wasn’t…’ The man tailed off, withering under the glare from his commanding officer.

‘Anything else?’ the colonel asked, with the implication that there had better be, unless the major wanted to find himself back as a private.

‘She’s been asking lots of questions about why she’s here. We haven’t managed to get started on her memory banks yet. We can’t find a way in. She won’t tell us.’

‘I’m sorry, Major. I must have misheard you. Did you just tell me you’re letting a _machine_ boss you around?’

‘Err…’

‘I don’t give a fuck whether it _tells_ you how to get into its memory or not! Just _do_ it!’

‘Yessir! Right away, sir!’

‘But not now.’

‘Sir?’

‘First I need you to pick three men and go back into town. The boyfriend’s outside the offices of the _Union-Tribune._ Pick him up, _quietly_ , and bring him back here. He’s got evidence that we took this heap of scrap metal.’ He kicked out savagely at Piston’s leg, but she moved it and his toes slammed into the wall instead.

‘You all right, sir?’

‘Fine!’ the colonel snapped, hopping up and down. ‘Now get going. And be careful. She only brought one of the robots with her, there’re two more out there somewhere and we don’t want them getting in our way.’

‘Who brought what, sir?’

‘Just get on with it, Marshall!’

As Major Marshall hurried out, Colonel Garcia glowered at Piston.

‘You’d better be worth all this trouble,’ he complained. ‘No matter what your old owners think, we ain’t giving you back. So you might as well get used to it. I would say ‘make life easy for yourself and cooperate with us’, but you don’t have a life, do you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Piston said firmly.

Garcia blinked hard, taken aback. Then he snorted. ‘You’re a fancy piece of kit, I’ll give you that. But at the end of the day, you’re a weapon. Our weapon. And no civilian’s stupid little plan is gonna stop us using it.’


	30. The Art of War

Adrian’s phone had barely begun to chirp before he had whipped it out of his pocket.

‘Adrian? It’s me.’

‘Annie! Thank god. Are you in yet?’

‘Yes, we’re in.’

‘What’s happening? Have you got her out?’

‘We’re giving the colonel an hour to make up his mind.’

‘An hour?’

‘Can you wait that long?’

‘I don’t think it’ll take them all that time, do you?’ he chuckled grimly.

‘Excellent.’

‘You don’t need any help?’

‘No, don’t worry. You’ll hear from us soon.’ The call ended and Adrian slipped his phone away again. He peered out the car window at the building on his left and then drummed his hands restlessly on the steering wheel. All he could do now was wait and trust that everything went as planned. He pushed a button on the dashboard and tried to distract himself with Twenty-One Pilots, but his heart wasn’t in it.

Exhausted after the long drive from the city and a sleepless night worrying about Piston, Adrian felt his eyelids beginning to drop and at last he surrendered to the pull of sleep.

When he woke, it was to a hand clapping him on the shoulder and a voice growling in his ear,

‘You’d better come with us, buddy. The colonel’s not very happy with you lot.’

Adrian didn’t even bother calling for help.

 

Annie sipped her third cup of coffee and smacked her lips, much to the irritation of the lieutenant. The Jon sniggered and then stopped quickly when the soldier glared at him.

‘Young man?’

The lieutenant ground his teeth together so hard it was audible. ‘Yes?’ His voice was slightly muffled.

‘I don’t suppose you have a cookie or a piece of cake, do you?’ Annie asked in a light, quavering voice that over the last hour Lieutenant Gomez had learned to dread.

‘Ma’am, just where do you think you are?’ he burst out. ‘This is a top-secret army base, not a cafeteria!’

‘I am quite aware of that, young man!’ Annie’s tone sharpened and Gomez winced. ‘Though you’ve done a pretty poor job of _keeping_ it secret, I must say!’

Before the lieutenant could answer, the door banged open and Garcia strode in. He was grinning. And behind him, sandwiched between two men who looked like they’d been sculpted out of granite, was Adrian.

The Jon leapt to his feet, staring at the trio in horror. Annie dropped her cup and it smashed on the floor, sending shards of china everywhere.

The colonel’s smile broadened. ‘Did you two really think I was gonna let an old lady and her tin can put one over on me? Now you’re going nowhere until you hand over that footage and I find out where your pals are. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that there’s three of you missing?’

‘If we tell you, will you let Piston go?’ The Jon asked.

Garcia laughed. ‘I’m not gonna bargain with you! You give us what we want, or we’ll take it from you!’

‘Go to hell!’ Adrian yelled, shaking with rage.

The colonel waved at his minions. ‘Lock them up. We’ll see if they change their tune in a couple of hours.’

 

For a long time, there was silence inside the room which wasn’t a cell, but only just. Lieutenant Gomez listened to the quiet with undisguised glee. It served the aged biddy right, after all that fuss about coffee and cake. She didn’t have the right to march in here like she owned the place and start giving out orders. Who did she think she was? This was an army base, not a bingo hall! Now she finally seemed to have realised who she was dealing with. He wondered whether he should go over to them and gloat for a while. It was an appealing thought.

He sauntered closer to the door, mulling over the choice phrases he would employ. He was really going to let the old bitch have it. And the irritating robot that had laughed at him. And he didn’t like the look of that Adrian guy, either.

But just as he came up to the door, he heard voices start up inside the room. Looking quickly around to make sure that the guard was busy watching TV, he pressed his ear to the door.

‘So do you think they’re in position by now?’ Adrian was asking.

‘They must be,’ said the soft, male voice of the robot.

‘Don’t worry,’ Mrs Walter reassured them. ‘They’ll have us out of here in no time, Piston included.’

‘Annie..?’

‘What is it, Jon?’

‘Do you really think they’ll break their vows?’

‘Only if they have to. Only if any of us are in real danger.’

‘Sssh! I think there’s someone outside!’

Gomez had heard enough. If he wasn’t mistaken, Colonel Garcia would be very interested in this. _Very_ interested indeed.

 

‘Well done, Gorman!’

‘Err… it’s Gomez, sir.’

‘Yes, of course!’ Garcia waved a hand vaguely, a deep frown chiselling its way through his features. ‘Dismissed.’

As a disappointed Gomez slouched out of the room, the colonel turned to his second.

‘We have a problem, Marshall.’

‘Yes, sir. She’s still talking to people who aren’t there. Do you think she’s broken?’

‘That’s not what I’m talking about, damn you! I mean the fact that those other two robots are going to try and break in here to get their friends back!’

It was Marshall’s turn to frown now. ‘But, sir, what can two robots do against all of us?’

‘You did read their files, didn’t you? They’ve seen active service four times, they’ve been trained in guerrilla warfare and even the army don’t know all the weapons they’ve got!’

‘But I thought they took some vow of peac-’

‘And you heard what Gammon said!’

‘ _Gomez_ , sir. It was Lieutenant Gomez.’

‘Whatever. He overheard that bitch saying they’d break those vows if they had to! What on you think we can do against a Tesla coil?’ The colonel was striding up and down his office now, grim lines etched even deeper onto his face.

‘We still have the EMP, sir. That would knock them out of action instantly.’

‘But it would also knock _us_ out of action, Major!’

Silence filled the room as both men tried to work out a plan. The only sound was the restless taping of Marshall’s fingers on the desk and the colonel’s footsteps.

Then Garcia cried, ‘Ah! I’ve got it!’

‘What, sir?’

‘Yes, that’ll show them. We’ll get the whole lot of them, stop them making a fuss.’

‘How, sir?’

‘Simple, Major. A trap. You had the right idea. We’ll turn off all our equipment, ready the EMP and wait for them to come to us. The moment they get in range, we’ll set it off and our problems are at an end!’

‘But what if they slip past us?’

‘That’s why you’ll be taking the robot over to Colonel Hawkins’ set up until I give you the word to bring it back!’

‘Me, sir?’

‘Yes. Crate it up, stick it in the truck and for God’s sake, don’t tell that idiot Hawkins what’s in the box! Wait until tonight, though. They’ll probably strike under cover of darkness. Take five men with you. Maybe take that Lieutenant Goble. He’s certainly keen.’

‘Gomez, sir. It’s Gomez.’

 

Dusk settled around the base, soft as a moth’s wing, but inside, you could have cut the tension with a knife.

‘Get in the box,’ the major repeated for about the fortieth time.

‘Why? What are you going to do?’

‘All we’re going to do is move you. _Please,_ just _get in!_ ’

‘But I can move myself. All you had to do was ask me,’ Piston pointed out. She had a very bad feeling about what would happen if she obeyed.

The major opened his mouth to say something, closed it again and then finally said, ‘Actually that’s a good point. Gomez! Bring the truck in as close as you can. You two put the box on the truck. There’s no sense in breaking our backs when she can do it herself.’

Had she achieved anything? Piston wasn’t sure. On the one hand, she wasn’t in the box, but on the other it sounded like she was going to be, no matter what she did. And if they took her away, then how would her family find her?

…Unless they were looking for her right now and couldn’t find her, because this was an army base and The Spine had told her about the army and how difficult it was to get past them. They might not even realise that it had been the army who had taken her. Maybe they thought she had gone off on her own, that she’d run away!

Piston thought of Annie and how upset she’d been when the robot had been attacked. How much more upset would she be now? And what about The Spine? How would he feel, thinking that she had abandoned him? _And Adrian_ , she added hurriedly.

‘You can see us?’

Piston jumped. Standing before her was the man in robes and feathers. He had come back several times during the day but had never spoken to her. Now he stood with several others, some dressed like he was, a few in jeans and sweatshirts.

‘Of course I can see you,’ she said. ‘My name’s Piston. What’s yours?’

Major Marshall jumped and stared wildly around. ‘Stop doing that!’ he snapped. ‘There’s no one there!’

‘Yes, there is.’

‘He cannot see us,’ the robed man said. ‘Hardly anyone can.’

‘Why not?’ Piston asked, curious.

‘That’s it!’ the major roared. ‘You shut up right now, you stupid piece of junk! You’re going to come with me, you’re going to get in that box and if I hear another word, no, if I hear so much as a squeaking joint coming from you, I will shut you up myself! Are we clear?’

Piston nodded, trembling violently. For one horrendous moment, she was back in that alleyway, seeing a length of metal piping rise above her and come crashing down. She had no doubt at all what the major meant by ‘shut you up myself’.

As she followed the soldier out of the room, she heard the robed man talking to his friends.

‘…like the ones outside. Should we help?’

 

The Spine switched on his night vision and trained his photoreceptors on the road. Beside him, Rabbit did the same and Katja pressed her binoculars to her eyes.

‘D-d-do you think it’s worked?’ Rabbit muttered.

‘We’ll find out before long,’ Katja answered quietly.

‘I’m g-going to get a closer look,’ Rabbit decided.

‘Be careful,’ The Spine warned.

‘I w-will be.’ Rabbit disappeared silently through the brush, creeping closer to the army base.

‘Katja, I can’t tell you how much this means to me, you helping us like this.’

‘Sure you can, Spine. You’ve done sixteen times in the last three hours.’

‘Oh, sorry…’

‘Nah, it’s cool. Always a gentleman, right?’

‘Yeah…’ The Spine winced, glad she wasn’t looking at him. ‘About that…’ He had to tell her. If he let it go on any longer, one of them would get hurt. That is, if it wasn’t already too late. ‘Look, I know this isn’t the time to have this conversation, but…’

‘You don’t want to see each other anymore.’

‘Er… how did you-’

‘Because I’ve been thinking it too, Spine.’

‘Oh. Have I done anything wrong?’ The panic rose within him. Was she going to storm off like Daphne had done?

‘No, of course not. But neither of us wanted it to be anything more than casual, right?’

‘Right.’

Katja looked sharply at him. ‘Sorry, I assumed the feeling was mutual. Was I wrong? You don’t have to agree just to be polite.’

‘No, you were right. There was no pressure with you. I liked that.’

‘Oh, good. You had me worried for a moment. The last thing I want to do is break your heart, Spine. You’ve had too much of that already.’ Katja peered through her binoculars again. ‘But I’ve met someone who, well… I think I’m ready to try a proper relationship again.’

‘Good,’ The Spine said softly. He meant it, too.

‘Is that okay with you?’

‘That’s great,’ he told her. ‘I think I might have found someone too. Or at least, I would have done if she wasn’t going out with someone else.’

‘Are she and Adrian definitely going out, then? I thought it was quite casual between them, too.’

The Spine stared at her. ‘Was it on the news?’ he asked, exasperated that everyone seemed to have noticed how he felt about Piston before he himself had done. ‘Did someone paste up a billboard somewhere? Does the whole country know or just everyone in California?’

Katja laughed, then stopped when she remembered where they were.

‘I just guessed! I was right, then?’

The Spine said nothing in reply but merely steamed with frustration.

‘C-cool down, b-bro.’ Rabbit was back. ‘I think they’re c-coming out with her.’

‘All right. Are we all ready? Then let’s do this!’

 

The base was cupped in a small valley, the single road winding laboriously through the steep hills. From their vantage point on top of one of these rises, the three could just about make out the station. They were exactly the right distance away: still nowhere near civilisation, but far enough from the base that the gunshots wouldn’t be heard and if the plan went wrong, it would take reinforcements a little time to get here.

Lead by The Spine, the three scooted quietly down the hill and nestled themselves in the undergrowth.

‘Remember, if they start firing, get behind me,’ the tall, silver automaton reminded them.

‘Are you sure?’ Katja asked.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Rabbit reassured her. ‘A-a-as long as they don’t have a b-b-bazooka…’

The Spine sighed. Then he stiffened. ‘I can hear the truck. It’s just come into audio range.’ They all fell silent, listening. Katja, with her human ears, heard it last of all: the faint grumble of an approaching vehicle.

‘Ready, Katja?’ The Spine whispered.

‘Ready.’

‘Go.’

Katja stepped out of the bushes, then arranged herself on the dirt of the road so that it looked like she’d fallen down the hill. She waited, her heart throbbing. What if they didn’t stop? But The Spine was right there. He’d pull her out of the way if the truck didn’t break in time.

The rumbling grew louder and louder until it seemed like it was right on top of her. They weren’t going to stop in time! And where was The Spine? She was going to die!

Just as Katja made to pull herself clear, she heard the squeal of brakes and the truck slid to a stop. She hastily turned her movement into a twitch and moaned, as if just coming round. A door slammed and footsteps hurried over to her.

‘Ma’am? Are you all right?’

She groaned again, because she rather liked the effect, and shifted her head so that she could crack open an eyelid and look up at her rescuer, squinting in the light from the truck’s headlights.

‘Can you move?’

‘It hurts…’ she muttered, attempting to push herself up and flopping back down again.

‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’ There were other people standing around her now.

‘K-Kay…’ she snivelled, surreptitiously pinching herself so that tears started in her eyes. ‘I was out hiking and I fell…’ The story wouldn’t hold water for very long, but it didn’t need to. ‘All right, honey, let’s check you over,’ said a gruff voice. ‘Don’t worry, I’m a trained medic.’ As the medic knelt down beside her and began taking her pulse, Katja thought she heard a scraping noise from the direction of the truck. Could they actually pull this off without resorting to violence?

Just as she thought that, a cry rent the night and the soldiers wheeled around, staring at the truck and the figures trying to steal its cargo.

 

Piston had barely set foot in the tall box when the robed man appeared again. This time he was alone, although that might have been because there wasn’t room for all his friends inside the crate as well.

‘Piston?’

‘Yes?’ she asked, feeling calmer just at the sight of this man. With her power core still on overdrive, every emotion she had experienced for the twenty-four hours had been doubled in intensity and she had had no way to work off her excess energy. Only when this man turned up did she find any sort of peace.

‘That is a curious name.’

‘Err… thank you. I think.’

‘But it is more curious that you can see me. How do you do it?’

‘Well, I just look at you. How else would you see anyone?’ Piston put her head on one side and gazed at the man with puzzled photoreceptors. What on earth was he talking about?

‘You do not understand, do you?’ he asked, peering into her eyes. ‘A machine that can walk and talk and see the dead, but it does not understand-’

‘I’m not an ‘it’!’ Piston objected, crossly. ‘I’m a ‘she’! And I may be a machine, but I’m still alive!’ She stopped, frowning. ‘What do you mean, ‘see the dead’?’

‘I am dead,’ the man said. ‘I have been for almost a hundred years.’

Piston’s mouth fell open. ‘But you can’t be dead!’

‘I assure you, I am.’

‘But-but you’re still here!’

‘I am a spirit, a soul, a ghost. I am what is left when the body is taken away.’

‘I don’t believe it!’

‘Whether you believe it or not is immaterial. I am still dead and you can still see me, when most ordinary people can’t. You must have seen other ghosts.’

‘No, I-’ Piston broke off. She barely even registered that the truck had stopped. All she knew was that her brain, fired up by excess power, was turning over the times she had seen Adelaide and how they had only met when, like now, Piston’s core was acting up. Adelaide had used words Piston hadn’t heard before, words like ‘beau’. She spoke in that strangely formal way, much like this man did and when Piston had asked her how she was, she had said, ‘exactly the same as always’. A ghost wouldn’t change, would they? But that would mean that Adelaide, her friend Adelaide was-

‘No!’ Piston howled and the horrible, rasping barks began tearing themselves from her throat.

 

The Spine’s fingers slipped as they struggled to open the lock. If Katja could just keep the soldiers busy for a few more minutes, they might be okay. But this lock was being stubborn. Should he try crushing it?

He took a firm hold of it and then Piston’s voice rang out on the still night air

‘No!’ It was followed almost immediately by the barking, but The Spine couldn’t worry about that, because the soldiers had all swung around and were staring right at them.

In the moments it took their eyes to see past the headlights, The Spine had darted forward, pushing Rabbit behind him.

‘Hey! It’s the robots!’ one of the men said. Five black muzzles were swung from shoulders and raised themselves to firing height. ‘You give yourselves up!’ the soldier ordered. ‘Or else we’re gonna have to stop you.’

‘No,’ The Spine growled. They were so _close!_ He took a deliberate step forward and watched one of the men flinch with deep satisfaction.

‘Fine,’ the soldier replied, his oak leaves glinting in the headlights. They opened fire.

Bullets hammered his chest plates and ricocheted off into the night. One pierced his shoulder joint and wedged there.

Circuits blazing with pain, oil trickling down his arm, The Spine lost himself to memory. He strode forward, another bullet catching in his neck. The pain wasn’t important. His only task was to stop these men, stop them hurting people, stop the war. One hand reached out and crushed the barrel of a gun, just as it fired a bullet that punched into his chest, inches away from his core. The gun was torn out of the soldier’s hands, thrown aside. Another missile smashed into his elbow and fractured the circuits there.

Ignoring the his now useless right arm, The Spine swiped with his left and the other guns were flung into the side of the truck. His emerald gaze turned to the men who had been holding them, the Communists who-

The Spine blinked, shook his head and gazed at the soldiers. _US_ army? And then it all came flooding back and he glared at the men who had tried to tear his family apart. One of them was scrabbling in the truck for a radio, but The Spine hauled him out by the scruff of his neck, ripped the box from his hand and flung it away as hard as he could, where it cracked against a rock.

‘Hold on,’ the major said, as he and his men backed away from the furious automaton. Form behind them, there came a stifled cry and a thud. ‘You took a vow of peace. You ain’t allowed to hurt us!’

‘Maybe,’ said Katja’s voice. ‘But I am!’

Her hands flashed out of the darkness and two soldiers crumpled to the ground next to the unconscious medic. A second later, a hefty kick to the jaw sent another flying. He crashed backwards into The Spine, who fell over. He made to push the unconscious man off him, but one arm was now useless and the bullet in his left shoulder sent sparks of agony through his whole body. At last, he managed it. He got back to his feet and stopped dead. Katja had disabled all the soldiers but one, and that one was holding a knife to her throat.

The Spine met the lieutenant’s wide, slightly mad eyes and knew the man wasn’t bluffing. Katja growled in frustration, but she didn’t move a muscle.

‘Back off, buddy!’ the lieutenant cried. ‘Or I’ll slit this broad’s throat!’

The Spine took a step back.

‘Further!’ the man yelled. ‘I don’t trust you!’

The Spine had a sudden idea. ‘How about I disable my body?’ he offered. ‘That way I can’t possibly harm you. And you can let Katja go.’

The soldier frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll show you,’ The Spine said, crouching down.

‘No tricks! Got it? Or I’ll kill her!’ The Lieutenant pressed the knife harder against Katja’s skin and she hissed.

‘Easy,’ The Spine said. He got down on to the floor and released his spinal catches with a series of clicks. Then he wiggled himself out of his chassis. ‘See?’ he said, craning his head up to look at the soldier. The man made a gurgling noise. His hands began to tremble.

And something came flying out of the darkness, knocking the knife to the floor and yanking Katja from the man’s grasp. It was Rabbit, who must have sneaked around the other side of the truck and waited for chance.

The lieutenant stumbled backwards, took one look at Rabbit now holding Katja, a second at The Spine’s serpentine form undulating across the ground towards him and collapsed in a dead faint.

‘Oh, Rabbit!’ Katja cried, flinging her arms around him. ‘Thank you! You saved my life!’

Steam blasted out of Rabbit’s cheek vents. ‘It was nothing,’ he said. ‘You and The Spine d-did most of it.’

‘Come on, we’ve still got to get Piston out,’ The Spine reminded them, eeling back over to his body and slotting himself back inside. Piston was still barking.

‘I’ll f-find the keys,’ Rabbit volunteered and began rummaging through the pockets of the unconscious soldiers.

The Spine activated his latches and tried to get back to his feet. But his arms wouldn’t support him. Now the rush of the battle was over, the pain redoubled and the glow from his photoreceptors was giving a green sheen to several puddles of oil. Very large puddles of oil.

‘Spine, are you okay?’ Katja asked, rushing over. She tried to help him up, but he was so heavy that even her strength wasn’t enough.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he said, shaking her gently off. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he at last managed to lever himself back onto his feet with his left arm, the right swinging at his side.

‘I’ve g-got the key!’ Rabbit cried triumphantly. Then he saw The Spine leaning heavily against the side of the truck. ‘S-Spine!’

‘Don’t worry about me, Rabbit. Just get Piston out. I’m not in any danger.’ That wasn’t strictly speaking true: he’d caught more bullets than he’d realised and at least one major oil line had been severed, his plates slippery with thick, black fluid. He inched his way along the truck, walking crookedly against it to keep himself upright.

Rabbit had got the doors open and The Spine gripped one tightly as he eased himself around to look inside. He stared at the crate.

‘Don’t say we’ve ambushed the wrong truck!’ Katja groaned.

‘N-no! That’s P-Piston’s voice!’ Rabbit insisted. He hopped up into the truck, making the whole thing quiver, and tapped on the crate. ‘Piston?’ he called. ‘It’s us! We’ve come to rescue you!’

The barking continued but Rabbit ignored it. Instead, he dug his copper fingers into the groove around the crate and pulled. With a sound like ripping duct tape, the nails tore free. Piston looked up them, oil coursing down her face, and her mouth dropped open. She gave a huge sob, followed immediately by another bark and flung herself at Rabbit, hugging him as tightly as she could. He was thrown off balance and his ancient stabilisers didn’t kick in time. He slammed a hand into the wall, denting the truck.

‘It’s all r-r-r-right,’ he stammered, hugging her back with one arm. ‘You’re safe!’

‘Not quite yet,’ said Katja. ‘We’ve still got to away with it. We need to go!’

Piston and Rabbit clambered down out of the truck and Piston stared in horror at The Spine. Still unable to speak, she clutched at his wet sleeve, gesturing frantically.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he said again and found himself grinning, despite the waves of agony rushing through his circuits. They had Piston back. Everything would be okay now.

‘Come on!’ Katja said, starting back up the hill.

Rabbit shook his head. ‘We’ll have to take the t-t-truck.’

‘I can make it,’ The Spine lied.

‘Uh-uh. You’re h-hurt and we’ve g-gotta hurry.’

The Spine saw his brother stick his bottom lip out and knew what that face meant. Sighing, he sank onto the floor of the army vehicle they were about to steal, then swung his legs up inside.

‘You’d better drive, Rabbit,’ he said. ‘Piston and Katja can sit with you in the front.’

‘I’ll stay back here with you,’ Katja said. ‘Someone needs to keep an eye on you.’

The Spine knew better than to argue.

 

Twenty minutes down the road and they came to the abandoned lot where they had parked their van. Piston had at last stopped barking and Rabbit had filled her in on how they had found and rescued her.

‘You mean Annie and The Jon and Adrian are still stuck there?’ she asked, her eyes glowing so brightly that they could have used them as headlights.

‘D-don’t worry,’ Rabbit said, putting on the handbrake. ‘We’ve got a plan for that, too.’

‘What?’

‘Nah, you gotta wait and see!’ He winked at her.

They climbed out of the army truck and opened the doors. Katja jumped down and the two robots took The Spine’s arms around their shoulder and helped him over to the van.

‘How you doing, little brother?’ Rabbit peered anxiously at the holes in The Spine’s clothes, still oozing oil.

‘’M okay…’ But he didn’t sound okay. ‘Wi-Fi?’

‘It’s on,’ Rabbit confirmed. ‘B-but _I’m_ gonna do it!’

‘Do what?’ Piston inquired, biting her lip and staring at The Spine too.

‘We b-boosted the van’s Wi-Fi, with some help from QWERTY and some of Peter’s notes, so we should be able to reach The Jon.’

_Jon? Jon? Jon? Jon? Jooooooon!?_

_I can hear you, Rabbit!_ The Jon’s voice was very faint, but Peter’s designs had clearly worked, although he probably hadn’t meant for them to be tested in quite this manner.

_We’ve got Piston!_

The Jon’s reply was inaudible, but Rabbit felt the huge wave of relief that came with it.

 _Have you g-got the video?_ he asked.

 _Yep!_ His brother pinged it across to him. _Now hurry up! The people here are very nice._

_Are you all okay?_

_Yeah. Annie’s been giving ‘em hell!_

_We’d better go before they find us. It won’t be long now!_

 

Piston was still hovering over The Spine when Rabbit finished.

‘I’ve got the v-video!’ he crowed.

‘What video?’

‘The video, Piston, of Annie c-confronting the colonel and him d-denying that they had you and then threatening her and Adrian and The Jon. We’re going to give it to the newspapers!’

‘…Piston?’

‘Spine?’

‘…Will you… give them… your memory… too?’

‘Yes!’ Katja exclaimed. ‘That’s proof that they _did_ have you all along!’

‘Will it help Annie and the others?’ Piston said. She didn’t really want anyone rooting through her memories, but if it would get them out…

‘As soon as it hits the press!’ Rabbit cried gleefully.

Katja nodded. ‘As soon as that shit hits the fan, the army’ll drop ‘em like hot potatoes!’

‘Okay, then!’ Piston said, smiling for the first time in what felt like years, but was really only little more than a day. She was free and she could do something to help her family, who had put themselves in danger to try to get her out. Oil began collecting at the corners of her eyes again. As a fat, black tear slid down her cheek vents, she felt a pressure on her hand. Looking down, she saw The Spine’s long, slender fingers curled around her own.

‘…was worth it…’ he breathed.


	31. My True Love Hath My Heart, And I Have His

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it, the final chapter of Green Heart! As always, my heartfelt thanks to all of you for actually reading this, for your kudos and your comments. You really do make it worthwhile.   
> I've followed TheLittleLady's example and put some recommendations for other SPG fics at the end. Some of them have definitely inspired me.

Like an upturned bowl of polished blue enamel, the sky gleamed overhead and the African sun poured heat down upon their scarlet faces.

‘You said you remember them?’ Peter VI asked their guide.

‘Indeed I do,’ the man said, ruefully. ‘I’ve tried to forget it, but I can’t.’

‘You took them to the Dandy Candy mine?’ Peter V called from the back seat.

‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ their guide said over the noise of the Land Rover’s engine. ‘No one goes near that place. Are you sure you want to go there? I know a watering hole where all the giraffes go.’

‘Thank you, but no. We’ve got to see the exact place they saw.’

‘Why are you two interested, anyway?’

‘Do you know what those boys did with the thing they found here?’

‘No. What?’

‘Did you here about the robot attack on London a few months ago?’

‘Sure. Wait, you mean, that was them?’

‘Yep. We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.’ _And_ , Peter VI added in the privacy of his own head, _we want some answers._

 

‘This is exactly where you stopped?’

‘Maybe not exactly. It was ten years ago.’

They sat in the car twenty feet away from the old mineshaft, looking at the broken skeleton of scaffolding and crumbling buildings. Their guide wiped his hands on his shorts again and again, biting his lip. The Peters were staring round at the savannah, searching.

‘Where did they find it?’ Peter VI asked eventually.

‘Over there, I think,’ the guide said, pointing with a hand that shook violently. ‘The sun was setting and the light reflected off it.’

‘Come on, Dad, let’s have a look.’

‘It’s unsafe!’ their guide protested, but he was ignored.

The Peters clambered out of the car and began an impromptu survey of the area, Peter VI peering down animal burrows and his father prodding clumps of grass with his walking stick.

 

Nearly an hour later, they still hadn’t found anything and Peter wondered if his theory was wrong. But was that a good thing or a bad one? And then, staring around him yet again, he caught the flash of light. He dashed towards it, put his foot in a burrow and went sprawling. Just ahead of him, through the dense grass, he could still see that glimmer of blue light. Heaving himself to his feet, and thanking his lucky stars that his ankle, although sore, wasn’t broken, Peter hobbled forward and parted a clump of grass.

‘Dad!’ he cried, stumbling backwards and struggling not to retch. His father came limping over.

‘What is it, son? Have you found it?’

Peter VI nodded and swallowed hard. He pointed. There in the grass lay the fragmented remains of a blue matter power core. But it wasn’t alone. Fused to the device, as though it too was a robot, was an emaciated aardvark, the power core rooted into its spinal column. Even as they watched, its skeletal legs twitched feebly, parchment-like skin flaking off into the grass. Then its eyes opened and they burned with blue-white fire.

‘You were right,’ Peter V said in a hushed voice, gazing, transfixed, at the abomination before them.

‘I wish I wasn’t,’ his son said and vomited into the grass.

 

They sat in a worried, silent line outside the door, heads bowed and hands knotted in their laps. There was nothing more they could do now, but wait. The other people around them all wore exactly the same expressions of anxiety, although every now and then, one of them would stare at the robots.

‘It can’t be much longer, can it?’ Adrian asked and everyone looked at him. ‘You don’t think… I mean, with everything that’s happened…’

At that exact moment, the door swung open and Piston bounced out. Literally. She was still completely wired and showed no signs of coming down yet.

‘How did it go?!’ five voices chorused as four bodies leaped up from their chairs. The other examinees glared at them.

‘Erm…’ Piston put her head on one side, so far over that her ear was pressed against her shoulder. ‘I did start barking right at the beginning, but he didn’t say anything. And then it stopped after a while and the playing itself went okay, I think, and I’m fairly sure I got the time signatures right and-’

‘Sssh!’ came several aggrieved voices.

‘Tell us on the way back,’ Annie suggested gently.

Piston nodded, then looked with concern at The Spine, who was the only one still sitting down. ‘How is it?’ she asked anxiously, sitting down next to him.

‘Not too bad.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘I’m just stiff.’ They had done their best to patch him up in the little time they'd had between Annie and co.'s release and Piston's exam, but without the Peters, it had been hard going and The Spine had flatly refused the suggestion that Piston skip her violin exam. Now, he was swathed in bandages beneath his ebony shirt, leaking oil from a few places they hadn’t managed to get to and his right arm was still completely useless.

Piston stood up again and took The Spine’s left arm. With a heave, he was back on his feet, although his stabilisers adjusted sluggishly and Piston had to fling her arms around him to stop him falling over.

Heat bloomed under his plates where she touched him and The Spine felt his steam pressure increasing rapidly. He looked down at her face, deep into those brilliant eyes and wondered if she’d felt it too. If only he dared lean down a bit further, close his black rubber lips on hers...

She let him go, grinned and Rabbit took his arm to help him back down to the van. The Spine watched Piston walk away with Annie and Adrian and the passionate warmth that had flooded through him turned to a sullen, aching heat. He sighed, venting his built-up steam and didn’t answer Rabbit when he asked his brother what was wrong.

 

Piston went to walk with Annie and Adrian, uncertain what had just happened. Thinking about The Spine made her smile, she had accepted that. But being so close to him, touching him, had sent sparks flying through her system, along with a strange hotness she had never encountered before. Was it some sort of malfunction? But for the briefest of moments she had thought she’d seen that heat radiated back at her from The Spine’s beautiful, emerald eyes. Had she been mistaken?

‘So did you make any mistakes?’ Annie asked.

'What?'

‘Annie!’ The Jon protested from behind them. ‘Of course she didn’t!’

Piston replayed her memory of the exam. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It’s not the best I’ve ever played, though! I might have got the pace a bit wrong! How many marks do you think they’ll take off for that? It’s just that when I’m like this, I want to play as fast as I can and it’s really hard to slow down and—’

‘Woah!’ Annie cried, throwing up her hands. ‘I wouldn’t worry. If you didn’t make any other mistakes, I’m sure you’ll get the best mark out of everyone here.’

‘Do you really think so?’ Piston said, brightening up. ‘I’m sure lots of people are better than me. And they’re not robots, so it’s even harder for them and when they do well—’

‘You were wonderful,’ The Jon quietly insisted. ‘I know you were.’

‘Thanks, Jon!’ Piston threw her arms around him and squeezed tightly. Their sudden stop meant an old lady nearly walked right into them. ‘Oh, sorry!’ Piston said anxiously. ‘Are you oaky? We didn’t mean—’

The Jon pushed her through a door and out onto the pavement, where Annie was standing, shaking her head.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t go into town when you have a surge, dear,’ she pondered. ‘You’re a danger. Oh, I didn’t mean it like that!’ she said hurriedly when she saw Piston’s crestfallen face. ‘I just mean you get very excitable and, well, you are very heavy and you’re made of brass. Someone could get hurt without you meaning them to.’

‘I’ll be more careful,’ Piston promised, as The Jon opened the van doors.

 

At seven o’clock the next day, when Annie was the only one up, enjoying the early morning quiet and the knowledge that both she and most of her family were safe at home, the telephone rang. She put down her knitting, her son’s Christmas jumper now almost finished, and went to answer it.

‘Annie?’ said the voice at the other end.

‘Peter, love! How’s it going?’

‘We’re all done here. Getting the next flight back.’

‘That was quick!’

‘Well, our son’s guess was right on the money. I’m very proud of him.’

‘I’m proud of you both,’ Annie murmured. ‘So, when’s your flight?’

‘Four hours. We’ll get in about six tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll come and pick you up. I’ve got some news for you.’

‘Oh? Good or bad?’

‘A bit of both, I’m afraid,’ Annie said casually, as though she was talking about faulty light switches and not the kidnapping of a family member by the US army. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow. You boys stay safe, okay?’

 

An hour later, the doorbell rang.

‘Who on earth could that be?’ Annie muttered, heaving herself out of her chair again. She was still the only one up. Rabbit and The Jon liked sleeping late, Piston was presumably awake because of her power core, but she hadn’t come down and Annie would leave her in peace as long she wasn’t doing anything noisy, messy or dangerous, and The Spine had powered down on a table in her son’s workshop for ease of access.

‘Er, hi,’ said Adrian, when she opened the door.

‘Hi.’

‘I know it’s early,’ he said apologetically. ‘But could I talk to Piston, please?’

‘Of course.’ Annie stepped back to let him in. ‘I think she’s in her room, but don’t worry, she won’t be asleep. Third floor, take a left, second right, fourth room on the left.’

‘Oookaay,’ Adrian said, his face screwed up as he tried to remember the instructions.

 _I wonder what that was about,_ Annie thought as he disappeared up the stairs. _Good news or bad?_

 

There was a tap on the doorframe and Piston looked up from the cat’s cradle she had inadvertently made with the laces of her corset.

‘Adrian! Hi! You couldn’t give me a hand, could you? I’ve got a bit stuck.’

Adrian opened his mouth to say something and then apparently changed his mind. He began patiently untangling the knots from Piston’s finger joints.

‘Did you come over for the movie day?’

‘…No, actually I came to talk to you… How on earth did you do this?’

‘I’m not sure really. It just happens. What did you want to talk to me about? And if you like, you can stay for the movies. Everyone’s picking their favourites. Well, except me, because I haven’t actually seen that many. What’s your favourite?’

‘There! All done. Maybe you should leave the corset off for now.’

‘That’s probably a good idea,’ she agreed. ‘Thanks!’

‘No problem. I just wanted to… I think…’ He faltered and Piston raised her eyebrows.

‘Is something wrong? Can I help?’

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said. ‘Just a short one. Just in the garden.’

‘Okay!’ Piston leapt up and dashed through the doorway. Then she was struck by a sudden thought and came tearing back again. ‘You don’t know you’re way around, do you?’ she asked. ‘Come on!’ She caught Adrian by the hand and towed him after her, through the corridors, down the stairs and out into the grounds of Walter Manor, being very careful not to pull too hard and damage him.

They walked around the side of the house together and after a while, Adrian spoke.

‘I love you.’

They both stopped dead in their tracks and Piston gazed at him, open-mouthed. She wasn’t entirely sure what to say, but then he carried on,

‘I love you, but I know you don’t love me. That’s okay. You love The Spine, right?’

‘Well, I…’

‘I really, _really_ want to be with you, but the thing I want most is for you to be happy and you’re only going to be if you’re with him.’

‘Adrian…’

‘So I’m not going to ask you out anymore. Just promise me you’ll let me know how you got on in your violin exam.’

Black tears welled up at the corners of her vision and she reached out and took Adrian’s hand, as gently as she could. Then she dropped it and hugged him instead.

‘Thank you,’ she half-whispered, half-sobbed into his ear. ‘And I’m sorry, _really_ sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ he whispered back. ‘Honestly. You can’t help what you feel. No one can. Just make sure you’re happy, okay?’

‘I will,’ she said, drawing away and smiling through her oily tears. ‘Oh, I’ve cried all over you! I’m sorry!’

Adrian looked down at the greasy smears on the shoulder of his white t-shirt. ‘I’ll treasure it,’ he said and he smiled too.

 

The Spine turned stiffly away from the window, unable to watch anymore. So that was it then. She had chosen Adrian, after all. He hadn’t been good enough for Daphne, he hadn’t been able to save Konoko and now even when the girl he loved was another robot, he wasn’t good enough for her either. For a moment, he thought he heard someone muttering to him, but there was no one else in the room. The memory of Piston embracing Adrian repeated itself in his mind. His shoulders shook and his left hand rose to muffle his sobs as he, too, shed black tears.

 

The Peters were, it would be safe to say, somewhat alarmed when they at last arrived in San Diego and Annie filled them in on what had happened over the last few days.

‘You took on the _army?_ ' Peter V said, staring at his wife in horror. ‘Are you _insane?_ ’

‘What, you think I was going to let Piston fend for herself? You should know me better than that, Peter.’

‘Is everyone okay?’ her son demanded to know.

‘The Spine needs some repair work, but he’s not in danger anymore,’ Annie said, too busy looking at the road to pay attention to what she was saying.

‘ _Anymore?_ ’

Annie cursed silently as she drove around a corner. ‘Look, they insisted. You know how they get. How else were we going to get Piston out?’

‘Tell us _exactly_ what happened,’ Peter V said, giving his wife a stern look.

Completely unabashed, Annie complied.

 

When they got back to the manor, both father and son were greeted with three rib-crushing hugs apiece and a great deal of excited chatter.

‘We heard what happened!’ Peter V exclaimed, extricating himself from Rabbit’s clutches. ‘And well done on your exam, Piston. I’m sure you’ve done brilliantly.’

‘Thank you! I hope so! Why did you go to Africa?’

The Peters exchanged glances.

‘Well, it’s a bit complicated,’ Peter VI said. ‘We’ve got something important to tell you, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Right now, we need to fix The Spine. Where is he, anyway?’

‘Up in y-y-your workshop,’ Rabbit said. ‘We did the best we could, but he r-really needs you.’

‘Aren’t you at least going to sit down, have some breakfast?’ Annie asked. ‘You’re not going to be much use to him if you faint from hunger.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ they said in unison. Neither of them had felt like eating much after seeing the zombie aardvark.

Annie sighed and the Peters began to climb the stairs.

 

When Peter VI saw the damage that had been done to The Spine, a robot who was brother, uncle and grandfather to him all in one, he understood immediately why they had gone to such lengths to get Piston away from the army. Rage flared inside him, but it wouldn't do any good, so he quashed it firmly.

‘Hey, Spine,’ he said softly to the prone figure on the workbench. ‘We’re back.’

Two dim green lights glowed brighter.

‘Peter?’

‘Yeah, both of us.’

‘It’s not too bad. A couple of bullets got in my joints, that’s all.’

‘Spine, if you don’t stop crying wolf, people aren’t gonna believe you when you’re really hurt.’

A weak chuckle sounded.

‘All right, I get the point, Peter. But it honestly could have been worse. Right, Peter?’

Peter VI looked round at his father, who was shaking his head.

‘Damnit, Spine, I wish you were wrong,’ the older man sighed. ‘But it’s a lot better than how you looked after Vietnam. At least we haven’t lost you this time.’

Peter stripped off his coat, put on his work gloves and began rummaging through his tools.

‘Hey, how about we get one of the others to come and sit with you,’ he suggested. ‘They’re all worried about you. I could go and ask Piston.’

‘No! That’s fine!’ The Spine said abruptly. ‘…I don’t want to worry them,’ he continued. ‘And it’ll only upset Rabbit and The Jon. It’ll remind them of Vietnam, too. That’s why I came up here.’

‘How many times have I told you, Spine?’ Peter V said. ‘You’ve got to stop being so selfish!’

 

‘So, what did you have to tell me?’ Piston asked. Her core hadn’t yet settled down, but she was managing to sit quite calmly on the sofa with Rabbit and The Jon, looking inquiringly at the Peters. Annie put down her needles and everyone waited expectantly.

‘Your core doesn’t act the way we’d expect it to,’ Peter VI began. ‘You know about Becile’s elephants, what happened to their operators, so you know the last thing we’d expect a green matter core to do would be to bring something to life.’

‘But it has.’

‘Exactly. In fact, although it’s very erratic, in many ways your core acts more like blue matter than green. I theorised, and this is what we went to Africa to check, that your core had been in close proximity to blue matter for some time before those boys picked it up. If blue matter radiation can affect other things, why not green matter?’

‘So, there was a blue matter core in Africa too?’

Everyone saw Peter swallow hard and look to his father for help.

‘Yes,’ Peter V confirmed. ‘We found a blue mater core. It must have been sitting next to yours for almost a hundred years. You see, just as the blue radiation affected your core, the green radiation from yours affected it. There was… Well, you don’t need to know.’

‘What?’ Piston said at once. ‘Please tell me. I handled finding out about the elephants.’

‘True.’ Peter V glanced around at his family and saw that they were all hanging on his every word. He sighed. ‘Oh, all right. Peter, get the box.’

‘Are you sure, Dad?’

‘No, but you know what this family is like.’

Piston’s fingers tapped restlessly on her knees as Peter VI disappeared and came back a few moments later carrying a large box. He set it down on the coffee table and backed away, looking very green.

Peter V opened the flaps.

Piston shrank back in horror and started barking. Rabbit and The Jon clutched at each other, The Jon making little whimpering noises, and Annie screamed.

Peter shut the flaps again. ‘We couldn’t leave it there,’ he said. ‘We’re going to destroy it, once we work out how to do it safely. We couldn’t let  _that_ fall into anyone else’s hands. Maybe we'll put it in the vault for now.'

 _What_ was _that?_ Piston cried. She remembered the memory The Spine had shared with her, of the operators welded into their machines.

‘I-i-i-it’s all right,’ Rabbit tried to reassure her, but stuttering worse than ever. ‘Y-y-y-your core doesn’t d-d-d-do that.’

This was true. And Piston suddenly understood something.

_That’s why I can see ghosts! Green matter is all about death, so I can see the dead!_

Rabbit and The Jon stared at her in alarm. Then The Jon said, ‘Is that who you were talking to that day?’

Annie and the Peters were looking puzzled, but Piston ignored them.

 _Yes_ , she said sadly. _I only found out the day before yesterday, but Adelaide’s a ghost. I saw ghosts at the army base too. They were really surprised I could see them._

‘What’s going on?’ Peter VI burst out.

‘P-Piston can s-s-see ghosts,’ Rabbit explained.

‘Can you? Why didn’t you tell us? Are you sure they’re ghost? What’re they like?’

‘She didn’t know they were ghosts,’ The Jon told him. ‘And it’s her core.’

A notebook materialised in Peter’s hands and he began feverishly scribbling notes, plying Piston with questions she found impossible to answer, as she hadn’t stopped barking.

Eventually, Annie put her foot down. ‘Peter, stop it!

‘But, Mom—’

‘This is not the time to be asking her these questions. You have years to do that, for goodness’ sake!’

‘She’s right, son. Give Piston a break.’

Piston at last managed to relax enough to get control of her voice box back. ‘I’ll answer your questions,’ she assured a forlorn Peter. ‘Just not right now, okay?’

‘Course. Sorry, Piston.’

‘That’s all right. I’ll see you guys later.’ She got up and hurried from the room. The image of that poor, mutated creature filled her mind and she shuddered. Even just looking at that chunk of blue matter had felt wrong. It was so hard to reconcile that monstrosity with the power cores that ran the other robots. But worst of all was the terrible knowledge that her own core had caused all that. She was torn, grateful that the blue radiation meant she had been brought to life, but horrified at what the green had caused. She needed to clear her head and the best way she knew of doing that was to talk to The Spine. He was always so comforting. And, she admitted, she really just wanted an excuse to be around him.

 

But try as she might, she couldn’t find him. He wasn’t in the workshop, he wasn’t in his room, or the garden, or even the attic. Calling him over the Wi-Fi had no effect whatsoever. Piston began to grow concerned. Was he all right? Had the repairs not worked, somehow? He could be in pain, unable to contact anyone to let them know! Or, she conceded, as she neared the one place she hadn’t yet checked, he could be sulking. She stared up at the letters HOW, took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

 

There was no headless body to greet her, for which Piston was immensely thankful, just the dull, red light and one of QWERTY’s screens, blank.

‘Spine?’ There was no reply, but if he was sulking, that wasn’t surprising. But why would he be? Did he blame her, she suddenly wondered, for his injuries? Was he trying to avoid her? ‘Spine?’ She had to talk to him, find out what was wrong. Her photoreceptors scanned the dingy room, working their way up into the snarled nest of wires. There was a glint of metal, but she couldn’t make out what it was. Piston jumped up and down, trying to see, her feet hitting the floor each time with a tremendous crash. Still unable to tell what was up there, she moved closer, until she was right underneath it, and jumped again. A cable caught on her arm and as she fell back, it jerked, rocking the cat’s cradle. And something long and thin slithered out from between the wires and landed with a clang on the floor at her feet.

‘Piston!’

 

He had heard her calling him, but he still needed time. Why had it come as such a surprise to see her and Adrian together? Why had he assumed that nothing would ever really happen between them, that _he,_ not Adrian, would be the one to win her over? _Idiot!_ he thought savagely and kept on walking, deliberately avoiding her. He didn’t want her to see him in this mood, in case he took it out on her instead. Maybe he’d been right all along; there wouldn’t ever be anyone else but Konoko and she was long dead. But then his audioreceptors caught the crashes from the Hall of Wires and he knew he’d have to stop Piston before she upset QWERTY. The operating system was still smarting from Rabbit’s attempts at extortion and was quite likely to take offence at Piston’s exuberance.

The Spine groaned and jogged along the corridor. He pushed open the plain, white door, just as Piston jumped again and Konoko’s katana fell from its moorings and crashed to the floor.

‘Piston!’ Was it broken? He strode across the room, but the brass girl had already picked it. She looked up at him and he knew she had read the fear in his face.

‘I’m sorry!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t mean to! Is this… is this your friend’s? The one who died?’

She remembered that conversation? And she had put it together with this? The Spine blinked several times, then nodded, unsure what to say. Just as he had made up his mind, Piston looked past him and her eyes went wide.

‘Hello!’ she called.

The Spine spun around, but there was no one there.

‘Piston, who’re you talking to?’

But she didn’t answer. Or at least, she didn’t answer him.

‘Oh, it’s yours? I’m sorry.’

‘Piston, what’s going on? Piston?’

She glanced back at him, then carried on staring over his shoulder.

‘I didn’t realise!’ she said. ‘All this time?’ Her voice filled with sorrow.

The Spine followed her gaze but still couldn’t see anyone.

‘Piston!’ he said again. ‘What’s happening? I don’t like this.’

‘You want to what?’ Piston bit her lip, a frown etching itself into her face plates. ‘Is that safe? What if you get stuck?’

‘Who are you talking to?’

‘…All right, then. We’ll give it a try.’

‘Give what a—’ The Spine broke off. Piston’s whole body jerked, as though it was puppet on a line. She stumbled, dropping to her knees, still clutching the katana. The Spine bent over her. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, putting out an arm to help her up.

The hand that grasped his quivered uncertainly and her legs shook as she got back up. And when she spoke, although it was Piston’s voice, she didn’t sound like Piston at all.

‘So this is what it’s like being a robot?’

The Spine dropped her hand. It sounded like… but it couldn’t be. For a moment, she had sounded like Konoko.

‘You told me, but it’s different experiencing it,’ she continued. The Spine found himself backing away, unable to speak. Piston, or whoever she was now, took a step towards him, a heavy, awkward step that almost had her falling over again. One brass hand jerked upwards in a clumsy attempt to touch his face. The Spine flinched.

‘It’s all right,’ the woman said. ‘I haven’t hurt her. I wouldn’t. She agreed to help me. This is the only way I can talk to you, Sekitsui.’

That name… that was what Konoko had always called him. It had to be her!

‘How…’ he croaked.

‘She’s a medium,’ Konoko said, in that strange voice that was hers, but still Piston’s. ‘She can see ghosts. It’s okay,’ she soothed. ‘I just wanted to talk to you and then I’ll go.’

‘Talk to me…’ he said, stupidly. Konoko, his Konoko, was standing in front of him again. Sort of. Her hand reached up again, more smoothly this time, and he let her caress his cheek.

‘What have you been doing to yourself, Sekitsui?’ she breathed, an oily tear glistening in her eye.

‘You were gone…’ he moaned, his silver hand enclosing her golden one. ‘I didn't save you and then you were gone...’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘It was worth it, to save all those people, but I’m sorry it hurt you.’ She held up the katana in her other hand, the blade stained black by countless tears. ‘You need to let me go, Spine. You couldn't have saved me and you need to move on.’

‘I don’t know how,’ he muttered, unable to meet her eyes.

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘You do. You love Piston, don’t you?’

‘…Yes, I do. But she’s got Adrian.’

‘She loves you too.’

The Spine’s eyes snapped back to hers.

‘What?’

‘Just ask her.’

‘But what about you?’

‘I’m dead. You need someone who’s alive, someone who can make you happy. And I want you to be happy, Sekitsui. That’s _all_ I want.’ She reached up on her tip-toes and kissed him softly on the forehead. ‘I need to go now. For good, this time.’

‘No,’ he pleaded. ‘Not again…’

‘I have to let Piston have her body back. She knows what we’ve been saying, so you won’t have to explain it. She really is a wonderful person. You always did have good taste. I explained to her who I was and she was willing to help me, even though it meant me taking over her body.’ Konoko smiled. ‘Be happy, my love.’ The green eyes before him blazed with such intensity that for a moment, he was blinded. Then the light winked out and Piston’s chassis crashed to the floor. The Spine stumbled backwards, found himself against a wall and slid down it, his whole body wracked with grief and confusion.

 

It took some time for Piston to power up again, and when she did, she realised the energy surge had gone. Channelling Konoko had used up all her excess power and more besides. When first she opened her eyes, the room was dim and blurry. Gradually, it came into sharper focus, although she could see was the wire-festooned ceiling. Shakily, she pushed herself into a sitting position and saw The Spine, slumped against the wall.

‘Spine?’

‘Piston.’ He was gazing vacantly at the opposite wall and panic began to creep along her circuits.

‘Are you… all right?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘Was that the right thing to do?’

His eyes glowed slightly brighter and he blinked.

‘Yes. It was. And… I’ll be fine.’

There was a long period of silence in which The Spine seemed to do a lot of thinking. At last, he looked up, a curious expression on his face plates. ‘I know what Konoko said, but I saw you outside, hugging Adrian.’

‘Oh! Is that why you were sulking?’

‘I wasn’t sulking!’

Piston raised an eyebrow and, despite everything, The Spine found himself grinning. ‘Okay, maybe I was a bit,’ he admitted. ‘But, still—’

‘He’d just told me,’ Piston interrupted, ‘that he wasn’t going to ask me out anymore, because he knew it was you I loved. I hugged him, but I hug everyone. I was saying thank you.’

‘You mean...?’ The Spine said, optics shining brighter still and hope dawning across his face.

Piston nodded. ‘Yes.’ She grinned. ‘I love you, Spine.’

Two long, silver arms shot out and pulled her close against The Spine’s waistcoat. ‘I love you too,’ he murmured into her hair.

‘Oh!’ Piston pushed herself away. ‘What about Katja?’

‘We broke up the night we rescued you. She found someone else and I wanted you… We agreed to go out for a drink sometime, though.’

‘That’s all right then,’ Piston said and scooted back over to sit in The Spine’s arms. ‘What do we tell the others?’ she asked, peering up into his beautiful eyes, perfectly framed between the black of his hair and his sharp cheek struts.

‘I don’t think we need to, do you?’ he said, smiling. ‘I think they already know. In fact, I think my brothers have known for months.’

‘How come everyone knew about it but us?’

The Spine shrugged and she felt artificial muscles move beneath the black striped silk. ‘Sod’s law?’

‘What does that mean?’

He chuckled. ‘I’ll explain later. Just now, there’s something I want to do and QWERTY, if you’re watching this, I’ll unsolder you piece by piece.’

Piston went to ask ‘what?’, but she never managed to. The Spine had dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers. Little fires went searing through all her circuits and she pushed back, her hands snaking their way up and round his neck. One of his cupped her cheek, his fingers cool against the warmth of her vents, and the other ran up and down her back in long, tantalising trails.

Eventually, Piston had to pull away. ‘There’s a crick in my neck,’ she said and they both laughed. She sat next to him instead and he put an arm round her shoulder, pulling her in close.

‘Konoko was right, as usual,’ he said. ‘I do know how to move on, after all.’

‘Good. I want you to be happy too.’

‘I will be if I can kiss you again.’

And as The Spine gently parted her lips, their silicon tongues entwining and intimate heat billowing through their bodies, Piston realised that she, too, was happy. In fact, she was over the moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My recommendations:  
> -The Squeaks (AU) series by TheLittleLady. It's fantastic and the ending is brilliant!  
> -Pax Industrius by InterNutter. They beat me to the punch (for an fan fic I haven't published yet), but it's awesome.  
> -New to the Collection by Clockworkcreation. Sooooo many feels! Also everything that follows this fic.  
> -SevenPointEight by TheTetrarch. Incomplete, but so worth reading. Honestly, go do it. Now.
> 
> See you all next time, I hope!


End file.
